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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (34034)	10/18/2001 2:08:01 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I think (I am a relativist) therefore I am (a relativist). ;O)

To: Solon who wrote (34034)	10/18/2001 2:46:43 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

The question of relativism, however, has already been answered. It springs from the fact of human individualism, and from the nature of the self. The secular world is relativistic. It is the world you live in; it is the world I live in. That argument doesn't make any sense. We have facts about the world we live in. One of these is that people have different opinions about good and evil. But this fact says nothing about the possibility of any of those opinions being right or wrong, or morality being relative with no opinion correct or incorrect except in the mind of the person holding the opinion. It is conceivable that either God does exist or that absolute morality exists without a supreme being (for example some sort of Platonic idea of the perfect form of good or morality). If there is a supreme being it may recognize rules that are fundamental to the universe or it may decide on the rules. If it decides on the rules the reason for them may be for self interest or it may not be. Either way the rules may be enforced with divine punishments in a persons life (which doesn't really seem to happen) or in a afterlife, or not at all. I think I am probably missing some possibilities, but you collapse all of these to the assertion that if there is absolute morality it has to be from God, who decides it rather then recognizes it and puts it in place for selfish reasons and imposes it on people. Even if I accepted all of those assumptions I still don't see how that means we can't be individuals, it would only mean that we would be individuals under a divine despot. It would IMO be a bad thing but it wouldn't be exactly what you say it is. And my point wasn't even that such a situation does not exist if we have absolute morality but rather that it is only one of many possibilities and that moral relativism is not a default position. It may be true (if you believe truth can be objective at all), but it is not inconceivable that it is not true, and it has not been proven that it is. Tim