I said no such thing. I said because there is no absolute right and wrong, to keep your personal right and wrong moral compass to yourself is less stressful for yourself and others...lol

What are you talking about? You have been attempting to impose your personal beliefs on us this whole debate...lol It just hasn't worked for ya.

This is a discussion on right and wrong, isn't it? Are you saying that I can have my own beliefs, but "keep my damn mouth shut?" Doesn't that seem a bit exclusionary to you? Why should only people who agree with you be able to express their beliefs?

Ignoring that, your post is dishonest, because you didn't quote the post I was replying to that was suggesting everyone should just be a relativist, so that nobody will disagree anymore.

("Hey, you can have your own beliefs, just so long as they are the same as mine")

in the words of ronald reagan, "well there you go again". now you have decided that if i am not this i must be that. again, your words will never make my argument.



congratulations. you finally understand that as an agnostic I BELIEVE NOTHING. i question everything





you will never understand what MY position is until you read only MY words without saying such an absurd thing as "what you are saying is that.............." and then inserting YOUR words that have not a thing to do with MY position. i'm an extremely good communicator and usually will accept half the responsibility when a misscommunication happens in a conversation where i am envolved. but not in this case. others here understand my position perfectly based on what i write. as far as i know you are the only person who doesn't get my position.





yes, i continually tell you that you are mischaracterizing my position and you continue to do it.



hahaha. this would wear thin were it not so entertaining. where have i written that i am a moral relativist? and i don't care what it sounds like to you and what it sounds like to you will never work if understanding MY position is your goal. but that isn't your goal is it? it seems to me your goal is to ram YOUR beliefs about morals downt MINE and everybody elses throats. most if not everybody here seem to think that each of us derive our own morals from whatever influences we deem valid. you brought up moral absolutes on a thread concerning right or wrong. you made the claim that moral absolutes exist therefor god must exist. i never said you were wrong i simply questioned your logic. then when you could not make a logical argument to support your claim, you went off on all these tangents.



then don't debate with me. but i would never question the intellectual coherance of a person whom i know nothing about his education or qualifications. it's against my moral and ethical standard to come to such an unfair conclusion based only on what i read in a forum on a dating site. again it begs the question; do you derive your moral and ethical standard that allows you to insult me in such a fashion from your bible? no worries. not at all upset. as i say, such absurd insults are entertaining whether directed at me or anyone else. again, it's a dating site. i'm only here to be entertained.

hahahaha. see why i love this place so? you continue to overuse the words, "are you saying that..........". at least you don't descriminate. here, let me help you out. NO, HE'S NOT SAYING THAT AT ALLLLLLLLLLLLL.

Spider, you are hilarious, do you know that.

I keep reading back and you are trying so hard to be victimized. I guess, so you can be martyred?

You have the right to believe however you would like but shouldn't feel put out when others do not grasp it and run with it as universal truth.

Your personal morality is just that yours. Noone can take it from you. But it will never apply as absolute morality to anyone but you, if you want to describe it as such.

Respectfully, I won't be able to debate you until you take a coherent position on the subject. You haven't yet. You claim here you are a relativist (by saying your morals are relative to you) and yet you question where I got that idea "where have i written that i am a moral relativist? "

You don't even understand that implications of your position. IF YOUR MORALS ONLY APPLY TO YOU, BECAUSE YOU SAID "my morals are relative to me" THEN YOU LACK THE INTELLECTUAL GROUNDS TO QUESTION THE MORALS OF ANOTHER COUNTRY OR TIME. How can that not be obvious to you? How can you question the morality of slavery in Sudan, if your morals only apply to you? The only intellectually conherent position for judging the actions of others as immoral is moral absolutism, which is the polar opposite of moral relativism.

You need to think about this stuff. Read some on the subject and come back when you are willing to take a position. By flipping flopping around and never clearly stating where you stand, you have made yourself capable of winning any discussion, but not honestly.

Edit: Added an "r" to "you" to make "your".

I've been avoiding replying to you, but i have to comment here.

You still don't understand that I reject the idea of absolute morality. You really have no idea what my position is! You might even be convinced to accept my position as your own, if you could ever be bothered to read what I've posted and understand my position.



But look, it's Friday and the end of a long week. Hope you have a good weekend.

Wow, so nice of you to take the high ground and not refer to others as less intelligent than you or less moral than you.

Shame on you.

When you actually read my post, you'll see that you just lied. But that's okay, I won't hold it against you. It's obvious that you only skim my posts.

One day, you will realize that there is a difference between a statement and a question. I will be here to accept your apology on that day.

You need to read your post. Or maybe that will do no good if you are unable to see the condescending attitude in the post.

I know I ain't lying.

I'm putting you back on my "ignore" list. You aren't going to get a little back and forth of "Yes you did" / "No I didn't" that you are so desperately trol...I mean hoping for.

well regardless of your saying otherwise, i see nothing that i'd lable as "respectivively" when you suggest that i'm in any way incoherant, whether in my position or anything else about me. do you not find it objectionable to be to told that "you lack intellectual grounds" on anything you say? if you do then you're doing a lousy job of adhering to the golden rule. how can THAT not be obvious to YOU? i've stated time and again where i stand on this topic and you are the only one who doesn't get it and you are the only one using such childish school yard bully tactics by questioning my intellegence thinking that it somehow makes your point credible. it doesn't. everybody else sees my position as coherant and some even consider it well communicated. if you're having trouble with that perhaps you might search within. or in your mind can only you be right?

thought you were done debating the last time you said you were done debating. lol.

ignore list? we gots a ignore list? golly, mebee ya should put me n' the otherns' here bouts who don't see things the way you do on yer ignore list? yuont to?

Okay, ignore me but you did the wrong thing so punish me for it . Hilarious. I told you. You are so damn funny.

You guys are really reaching on this. "lack the Intellectual grounds" simply means you haven't thought it through. Just like "lack the moral grounds" would mean you haven't exhibited the morality necessary.

I haven't and wouldn't question your intelligence, that's not the measure of a man.

My point is that you probably didn't think too much or too deeply about this topic beforehand. You insist that your morals apply to only you, but then feel the right to judge another. While you do have that right, your position lacks intellectual coherence. Which is to say that your position "doesn't make sense" or is "contradictory", not that you aren't intelligent.

Heck, I've had to clarify and change my position a couple times in this thread, what does that tell you? If you had said "Your position lacks intellectual coherence", I would have to have agreed and did, when MassageTrade made his point a couple pages back.

I hope that you were honestly confused and thought that I was insulting your intelligence. I would hate to think that you were intentionally using a Straw Man fallacy.

The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.

2. Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents position Y.
Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:

Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
Quoting an opponent's words out of context — i.e. choosing quotations which are intentionally misrepresentative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute


I actually think Spider may have used this method in this debate a couple of times????

I had to look up the straw man thing cause I did not know what it was....lol

ain't buying. it's not intelligent to enter into a debate without thinking it through and that is precisely what you say i've done. you're simply back peddling now that i've drawn your attention to the golden rule. and how do you explain your reference to my lacking coherant reasoning to arrive at my position as anything but demeaning? but as i say, i'm no virgin at being unfairly treated as such.

how would you know whether or not i've thought it through? you keep using that same tired tactic. because i don't agree with you i either am incoherant, lack intellegent grounds or have not thought it through. again i don't enter into a debate without thinking through the topic. you seem to think "thinking it through" means thinking it through until i reach the same conclusion that you have. i've spent countless hours reading the works of einstein, sagan, hawkings and others to try and understand the universe. in doing so i can seen no logical reason for me to believe in your god. would you say that i've not thought it through because you do believe in god? the same applies to this topic. i've had to develope my own moral standards because the ones handed down from my parents i found deplorable. in doing so i can assure you that i've thought through what morals are and what they are not nearly every day of my life. and my bet is that's many more days than you've had to think about it.





you have every right to consider a previous position of yours lacking intellectual coherance. where you leave common couresy is when you claim the same is true for me.



no i was quite serious. and there's nothing straw man about your back peddling now. indeed the straw man crack is itself an insult. but as i say, heard it before and always entertained by it.

yep. spider is quite good at straw man argument. if he cannot make headway with his own position he begins to discredit the opposing position. he's done just that on several occasions when he begins with his now legendary, "what you are saying is........." and then inserts wording that i never said but would discredit my position had i actually said them. that of course never succeeds in making his position credible. so when that fails he attacks the "intelligent grounds" or the "coherant reasoning" of his opponent and finally concludes that he "just hasn't thought it through".

i would love the oportunity to enter a three way debate with spider, myself and a hard atheist who believes there is no god. as an agnostic i would argue that neither of them can ever prove himself right or the other wrong. using the logic, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the two would finally unite against a common foe. lil ole me. hahahaha

When I say "What you are saying", I am pointing out the intellectual ramifications of what you are saying. It's a rhetorical technique that is use around the world. I'm not putting words into your mouth, I'm pointing out end points of your statements.

You have said that your morals are relative and therefore only apply to you. But then you say you condemn the human rights violations in other countries. If morals are relative, then there is no such thing as human rights. I've tried again and again to help you see this, but you get offended with every attempt. You can't logically say that your morals only apply to you and then apply them to another. That IS what you have said. It is impossible to communicate with you, because you become outraged with every post I make.