Absolute Morals

[omgwtfToph]

Yeah exactly

See there are two solutions:

1. There is no God and every man is equal, so there is no such thing as absolute morals. Since every man is logically equal, every man can choose his own set of morals because there is no one to tell him what is right and wrong besides himself

2. God does exist and he makes the rules so whatever he says goes. This applies to religious people

So basically you're either atheistic/agnostic/whatever and you don't believe in absolute morals or you're religious and you do. If you're an atheist and you DO believe absolute morals exist, then you're confused. I've studied this stuff before and the philosophy of an absolute set of morals is nothing new to me. I could talk about this all day haha

[Aedak]

Yeah exactly

See there are two solutions:

1. There is no God and every man is equal, so there is no such thing as absolute morals. Since every man is logically equal, every man can choose his own set of morals because there is no one to tell him what is right and wrong besides himself

2. God does exist and he makes the rules so whatever he says goes. This applies to religious people

So basically you're either atheistic/agnostic/whatever and you don't believe in absolute morals or you're religious and you do. If you're an atheist and you DO believe absolute morals exist, then you're confused. I've studied this stuff before and the philosophy of an absolute set of morals is nothing new to me. I could talk about this all day haha

These are good points, if anyone is familiar with Sartre, a famous French Atheistic Existentialist philosopher, he touches on these issues quite frequently.

Strip away God and the "morals" he has given Christians, and we are all still basically the same (Christians and Atheists) with our own humanity (our morals as human beings would not change simply because "God was dead"). We will still have our own set of morals, but this does not imply that "absolute" morals exist; as when you use the word absolute it can be thrown out the window because nothing is absolute... all is relative and subjective... since we are all humans, there is no objective view, all we have is each other.

The only thing that could possibly fit into the "Absolute Morals" category would be evolutionary morals and ethics... which is quite interesting.. give it a read:

http://www.ditext.com/broad/huxley.html

and also:

http://bus.utk.edu/stat/mee/books/quest/q2.html

[rtt7]

God/religion/whatever aside...

Is it fair to say that there are underlying threads throughout humanity of what is right and what is wrong? Is there a "best fit line?"

Obviously there will be wackos in every test group. Statistically, it has to happen. There are even people who believe the earth is flat and we didn't go to the moon, regardless of the evidence for both these points (if you are one of these people, we can talk in another thread--not here).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that when it comes to the issue of absolutes in morality, you have to look at humanity as a whole. Hitler and random isolated groups of people whose morality is opposite that of the vast majority of humanity are not "permissible evidence."

Suppose there was originaly one standard set of values and isolated groups, over time, corrupted them. Just my thoughts

Signing off from the middle of the cornfield that is Ohio,

rtt7

[Aedak]

There are even people who believe... we didn't go to the moon, regardless of the evidence for both these points (if you are one of these people, we can talk in another thread--not here).

I'm one of those people.. =\

[User6773]

So basically you're either atheistic/agnostic/whatever and you don't believe in absolute morals or you're religious and you do. If you're an atheist and you DO believe absolute morals exist, then you're confused.

Not necessarily. Plenty of atheists have morality, so right and wrong is not restricted to the field of religion. An atheist could believe that humans are innately born with a general understanding of what is right and wrong, and society shapes and sometimes warps that. If this is so, then "absolute morals" could simply be what is natural for humans to believe is right and wrong.

[Aedak]

So basically you're either atheistic/agnostic/whatever and you don't believe in absolute morals or you're religious and you do. If you're an atheist and you DO believe absolute morals exist, then you're confused.

Not necessarily. Plenty of atheists have morality, so right and wrong is not restricted to the field of religion. An atheist could believe that humans are innately born with a general understanding of what is right and wrong, and society shapes and sometimes warps that. If this is so, then "absolute morals" could simply be what is natural for humans to believe is right and wrong.

I don't believe we're born with innate ideas of right and wrong, just the opposite. I think it is completely dependent on the upbringing and collective experiences in life as a human being that shape who you are as well as your personal morals and ethics. Someone with a completely different upbringing... maybe raised by wolves let's say, could have completely different standards for everything (I understand this is the most extreme example but understand the point).

I guess you could argue that somehow a baby is born with the biological knowledge of what is right and wrong, but since there is no way to test that it is impossible to know. (Unless some one here remembers when they were and infant before their morals were corrupted by their parents... :P)

You gave the example of cheating, but I think only the definition implies that it is wrong (but only if you perceive that to be wrong!), not our innate feelings of it. Let's say for example you grow up having been told cheating (or deception to profit yourself) is a good thing and you should be rewarded when you do such things. You're going to grow up believing this is not wrong but right! This differs from the idea that repetitive cheating can shape or change your morals, but I hope you see my point.

I don't want to turn this into a religious debate as mentioned on page 2, however I think all of the morals mentioned in the Bible or Commandments are either outdated, can be easily contested, or are still used widely today. Prime example: Thou shalt not kill. This is an obvious moral, but is it absolute? Not necessarily... Unless the morals are universally true, I think it is impossible for them to be viewed as Absolute. You are going to find disagreement somewhere, and that is all that is necessary to disprove it, by using it's own definition against itself.

[User6773]

I wanted to use cheating as an example because cheating is something that most people consider wrong but it's not something unforgivably despicable like murder or torture. I think that people naturally abhor those. Like you said, it would take experimenting to find out.

The only problem is that lesser wrongdoings (lying, cheating, theft, etc.) are products of civilization. So in order to teach a kid raised by wolves what they were you would have to civilize him, thus contaminating the experiment results.

A completely unscientific approach to this would be the story of Gilgamesh after he hires the harlot to turn Enkidu from an animal into a man. Gilgamesh kind of drags him along on all these killing adventures and Enkidu is naturally opposed to it.

[eyespewgreekfire]

In my opinion, the only absolutely immoral thing is to fail. If you suceed in whatever your goal is, you control thought and therefore people's perceptions. If you fail, you are rediculed and considered evil. "History is determined by the winners."
Plus, Chardish's absolutely evil things can sometimes be pitted against each other. What do you do when a women will die except if she has an abortion? Either you kill her or the baby. Therefore, since one of these evils is to be chosen here, it is not absolute.

[QreepyBORIS]

eyespewgayfier lol

[Aedak]

eyespewgayfier lol

What happend to Boris? Did someone feed him a retard cookie?