You're quick to superficially denounce anything you disagree with. But you objections simply don't stand up to serious consideration.

First off, you totally misrepresent the concept of 'moral relativity'. You do this by pretending that it would only apply to individuals and not to societies which is a fallacy on your part to begin with.

The whole concept of society is the concept of cooperation. And that's true whether it be a democracy or a dictatorship as you favor. And yes, you absolute favor a dictatorship if you favor the Biblical picture of God because that would be the ultimate example of fascism where God is the dictator.

So you favor fascism obviously.

All you're truly saying is that in a dictatorship morality would be an absolute because only the dictator would decide what's moral. In your religious scenario the dictator is God.

You denounce democracy as being meaningless because democracy is indeed an example of relativistic morality. (majority rules)

So all you're truly doing is arguing that a dictatorship is more meaningful than democracy simply because a single dictator would have the last word.

That's truly all your arugment amounts to.

But you still haven’t answered the question. If right and wrong are absolute, then there must be a right answer. So what is it?

Are you saying that there are circumstances wherein no right answer can exist.

Or are you falling back on the final refuge of all absolutist positions – “I don’t know”.

Personally, I consider moral relativism to be far superior to moral absolutism because it does not suffer from either of those self-imposed limitations.

And I'd stil like to get your answer to the question - what would you do?

LOL

You are trying to hard and still not proving your point.

If you want to believe that there is an absolute morality created by a being outside of this world, please do.

It doesn't make you right, it just makes it your opinion. Which you have the right to, by they way.

Morality and right and wrong are determined by groups of people who have the power to do so. That is the bottom line, there is nothing else.

When change happens it is because people change and grow and they will therefore change the moral code and what is right and wrong will change with it.

I have answered the question repeatedly. The moral thing to do would not be hurting the child.

But you seem to be confused on the whole topic.

The Absolutist/Relativist axis has nothing to do with how to react in that analogy.

The question becomes not how you believe right and wrong is determined, but how you come to a conclusion as to which immoral act is the least immoral. I draw the line clearly at murder, sexual immorality and worshiping idols. You don't draw the line at some sexual immorality, correct? You would hurt a child to save lives and believe that to be the superior moral position to my own which would be do nothing or look for a third alternative.

Clearly untrue. I have repeatedly said that moral relativity can apply to a society, culture, religion or individual.



You are trying to get a rise out of me, it won't work. But you do have a funny idea of what fascism is, thanks for the chuckle. Just so you know, fascism is when a government doesn't own businesses, but simply controls and strongly regulates businesses. Do you think that heaven is a country where all the Christians will be making designer knockoffs? Just teasing, you're a good guy.



The majority are often wrong and immoral.



Oh James.

He's trying to claim that there is such a thing as absolute morality, but even he doesn't know what it would be!



That's the fundamental problem with his whole argument. If he claims that humans know absolute right from absolute wrong then he could never be 'wrong'. For if he was wrong, then that would fly in the very face of what he's trying to claim.

Therefore he would have to have 'all the right answers' to any moral question.

But what is that saying?

All that's saying it that he has all the right answers and everyone else is wrong.

But once again, that flies in the very face of his arugument because if anyone disagrees with his moral choices then clearly they can't have the "same" absolute moral values that he does!

So it's a lose/lose ideology.

The only way he could win is to become a world dicator and demand that everyone abides by his decisions of what he feels is the correct moral decisions.

It's an impossible philosophy to sell.

Besides, look at what he is relying upon. A God from a mythology that claims to have a book that contains the 'word' of this God.

Once he starts pointing to that book for the answers of what God 'truly wants' it's all over.

The reason it's over is because we only need to look at the religions that used that book. They disagree with each other like mad dogs.

We have Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, and a whole host of radical protesting Protestants who can't even agree with each other much less the rest of the religious gang.

It's one of the the most confused and divisive religions on the face of the planet. Even the most scholarly clergy argue with each other concerning what is moral or not with respect to this supposed absolute God.

This argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. It's utterly absurd.

If you were reading my posts, you would know that I've answered his question at least three times.



No, because I more often than not end up doing the wrong thing. I'm weak and my personal morality isn't as high as it should be. Are you really going to tell us that you've never done anything that you knew at the time was wrong?



I thought I cleared this up...Right and Wrong are absolutes, morality is how we attempt to do right and wrong. We are talking about two different things here.

Simple analogy: "Right and Wrong" are the ocean, Morality is the boat.

You have it backwards, Moral code are the determinators of right and wrong. They are essentially the same thing any way.

No they aren't. Morality is how you navigate between right and wrong and the shades of gray.

Imagine a situation wherein you have to either steal or starve. It's wrong to steal. It's wrong to starve. Your morality is how you determine which is the right course of action.

He's trying to claim that there is such a thing as absolute morality, but even he doesn't know what it would be!



"That's the fundamental problem with his whole argument. If he claims that humans know absolute right from absolute wrong then he could never be 'wrong'. For if he was wrong, then that would fly in the very face of what he's trying to claim.

Therefore he would have to have 'all the right answers' to any moral question.

But what is that saying?

All that's saying it that he has all the right answers and everyone else is wrong.

But once again, that flies in the very face of his arugument because if anyone disagrees with his moral choices then clearly they can't have the "same" absolute moral values that he does!

So it's a lose/lose ideology."



I see this also. The problem with absolute right and wrong or morality because they are basically the same thing, is the same problem you have in a religion with it being right and all others being wrong. It is divisive and exclusionary and still doesn't decide who is really right and who is really wrong...lol

Morality determines what is right and wrong in a society. Moral code comes first and right and wrong come after.

Without a moral code there is no right and wrong except maybe a vigilante type determination which would still be subject to the groups determination of right and wrong from the moral code they hold to themselve.

If you're going to talk about absolute right and wrong then you'd have to ask which who was right and who was wrong between Jesus and Yehweh.

Yahweh said that it was right to seek revenge and take and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Jesus said that was wrong and that we should turn the other cheek.

Clearly Jesus had a different sense of right and wrong from Yahweh.

That's why he was crucified for blaspheme.

This is also why the Christians love him so much, precisely becasue he changed the very meaning of what's right or wrong.

The only problem is that Yahweh was supposed to be the actual God here. Jesus was obviously a mortal man who died when he was cruficied.

Jesus preached morals (concepts of right and wrong) that were far more in line with what Buddha preached in India 500 years earlier.

So if we accept Jesus' as the man who knows what's right and wrong then we must reject that Yahweh could have ever been God because he clearly had no clue what was right or wrong.

This just keeps going further and further down hill. In order to accept the teachings of Jesus, we'd have to denounce the teaching of Yahweh. But that leave's Jesus as a mere moral man no different from Buddha who just happened to agree with Jesus.

Actually it's far more likely that Jesus learned from the traditions of Buddhism and brought them back to his homeland. I personally believe this is the most likely scenario.

But it doesn't matter what I believe. It's cystal clear that even the gospels agree that Jesus taught different moral values (ideals of what's right or wrong) than the God of Abraham had proclaimed in the old mythology.

Jesus even didn't agree with Yahweh.

So there's your "moving target" that you don't like. Jesus is your "moving target".

You are making assertions here, but I see no logic presented to back up the assertions. I have offered analogies and logic to explain why morality is used to navigate right and wrong, do you have any logic or an analogy for why morality produces right and wrong? To my mind, that is clearly cart before the horse.

Morality is a judgment call. How can you make a judgment, if you don't know what you are judging?

Ok, so now we have a baseline. It is immoral to hurt a single child but it is moral to destroy all the children in the world.

Interesting choice.

I don’t agree with what some people call sexual immorality, if that’s what you mean.

Well since “doing nothing” would result in both events occurring and there is no fourth alternative given, yes, I believe that hurting one child is morally superior to destroying the entire human race.

(Note: I say “fourth” alternative because the alternatives given were
1) spare the child
2) spare the race
3) spare neither)

Without a moral code there is no right and wrong. Moral code determines what is right or wrong. I can only steal if the the moral code says to take it and not pay for it is stealing. I can only committ adultery if the moral code says it is adultery otherwise I am free to have sex with whomever I choose with no judgements. Moral code is the base and right or wrong comes after it.

Exactly. I agree with Dragoness. You have to have a Moral Code before you can even say what's right or wrong. Trying to turn that around makes no sense.

Once again James your post reveals your lack of education in Christian exegesis. Jesus handed down the laws to Moses. Jesus wasn't disagreeing with himself.



That law is part of the Mosaic law. The 10 Commandments were the laws given by God to Moses. In other words, you say that God gave the Israelites the above law and he did not.

The Mosaic Law was given to the people as a substitution to the 10 Commandments, which the people refused to follow. So instead of having the 10 commandment, the Israelites got 613. Now they were expected to still follow the 10 Commandments, but the 10 Commandments had no earthly punishment attached, so earthly punishments were written into the 603 other commandments.

Take a toy from an infant and they will cry. They innately understand their right to property. That covers stealing. You are still putting the cart before the horse.

I'm interested in how "absolute right" could even be defined or parameterized objectively. Not even the Golden Rule is absolutely reliable.

Anyone want to take a stab at it?

No. It's immoral to hurt a child. The other option is that everyone dies, not that I kill them. Doesn't this analogy seem really silly to you? What do you imagine, aliens are going to show up to destroy the world, but won't do it if one lone man commits a barbaric and savage act of lust? But whatever...



Okay...do you agree that hurting the child is wrong? You feel it's the less wrong of the two choices, but it's still wrong, correct?