Anyone afraid of heaven?

Post Reply New Topic

Then explain what "good" and "evil" are, or concede that there is no one definition of "good" and "evil", or explain why you don't need to explain what "good" and "evil" are to prove that absolute morals exist. Otherwise, good and evil are not absolute. However, I don't believe one "idea" existed before the other; I believe they all existed; the only reason we call them as such is because we discover them, so I would like to think that we discovered "absolute" morality before discovering relative morality. However, absolutes are still impractical in certain situations because then you would be treating every situation as though it were black and white, and there are only two answers. However, life is more colorful than that, and to ascribe every situation of human life with only a true or false answer is inadequate. Which is why I don't see the problem with relative morals; they're much more colorful and practical for all kinds of situations in life. Which is why we must be careful treading around absolute morals. Sure, you may believe in them or find them easy to believe in and the concept is simple, and that's a likely reason why it was discovered first, but life isn't simple, and neither is reality. But it's easy to fall into the trap that everything can be dealt with in absolute morals, (which is an absolute in itself) but such an oversimplification is inadequate and grossly inaccurate. In fact, what was once thought to be true may no longer be true, and what was once thought to be false may no longer be false. In fact, it could be neither or both. To believe that morality is based on absolutes (which should not be confused with absolute morality was discovered first) is simply absurd.

The entire nature of an absolute moral system precludes the idea that humans define it. I never said that absolute morals DO exist, I merely claim that the word morality implies absolute morality. If it didn't then why distinguish it from preference? This wiki here essentially makes my argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rela ... ihilism.3F I say that your perspective is really moral nihilism and should simply express itself as that rather than twisting language.

By the nature of good and evil, if they exist then they are absolute. Any good which is not absolute is not good but rather a preference.

It hardly matters, what we know as our ideas are what define our language. Morality though is defined as the absolute because that is what our moral ideas came from. If morality was originally just the absolute then the modifier relative morality is inherently nonsensical because it is just a complete oxymoron. Moral nihilism is the proper construction of this word as otherwise we merely confuse our language and its usage.
No, it is not impractical at all. Black and white is the same as true and false, and for every description of the world one can say talk about its truth and its falseness.


No, why is it inadequate? You presuppose your correctness by saying that. It is completely possible that every statement have a true or false value, in fact, statements that cannot be taken as true or false are meaningless so why not simply state the nonexistence of a concept and thus nullify it rather than maintain it as it not being what it is.

Well, the problem is purely one of language. Relative morals implies morals, but if morals are relative then these morals are not morals. I simply think that this is sophistry, why not say there are no morals but only preferences, that way we detach the absolute of morality from action, because it is not morality itself that is subjective in framework, there is a denial of any known moral truth with the acceptance of people claiming it.

Your assertions are useless for your position. You cannot prove the inadequacy or inaccuracy of something as abstract as morality, because the only judge of morality is morality, so you assume a moral structure by denying one. It is not absurd at all, it is rather a matter of definition and a very simple matter of definition. Just negate the concept of a moral system and really, we have everything I want. I simply dislike the inexactitude found in subjective right and wrong, because if it is subjective then it is not objective and thus the right and wrong are not so, which means that there is no moral truth in the objective sense.

Then define "good" and "evil". And why you wouldn't have someone else's definition of "good" and "evil" qualify.



I can't see why it's an oxymoron. A relative moral just applies to a person or a few that follow it; just not everyone. To believe that Christianity contains "absolute" morals is kind of absurd anyways because it postulates what everyone must follow, but everyone doesn't follow Christianity, so it ends up becoming a relative moral, or "preference", if you prefer to call it that.



Linear algebra problems rarely ever have one answer as being the only correct answer. Thus such an answer could not be considered black or white only; in fact, there are more than two possible answers. Or perhaps, a really subjective one, like "killing is wrong". Yet, doctors perform euthanasia, and no one really knows whether or not this form of killing is wrong. You could try to pretend that that makes the statement "killing is wrong" false, but that would mean that murdering people because you don't like them is okay, and we're back to square one. Then you would also have to explain the many other methods of killing people, and whether or not they're true or false, but people make exceptions, and people don't agree when killing is wrong. Thus an answer to whether or not "killing is wrong" is too complicated to provide it a true or false answer, since you would also have to go through the process of explaining how you came to it being true or false.



So suddenly, linear algebra is meaningless just because there's more than one equation of a line that intersects a point on a plane? If that were true, then you may as well not be using a computer. Most of the programs you're using rely heavily on programming that has to do with linear algebra. If everything could be so easily proclaimed as true or false, then computers wouldn't have a problem doing everything we do. But they cannot.



Then morality is pointless. Why bother with an absolute concept that doesn't even exist in reality?



And there isn't. What's your point? That you want there to be one, despite the fact it probably won't happen?