Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
"Please do "demonstrate" that there is no absolute morality."
For a morality to be absolute, it must also be unambiguous.
Is the immutable law
Thou shalt not kill or Thou shalt not murder?
And how do we define what constitutes murder? Is capital punishment murder or justified death? What of self defense? War? Who defines what is and is not moral? If War is acceptable, are deaths on both sides justified?
If you haven't done any research into non-theistic ideas about morality, perhaps this isn't the best thread to jump in to unprepared.
Except you know that I have and found them ALL equally arbitrary and without merit. IF the basic raison d'etre for life cannot be established as something more than accident . . . whatever happens or does not happen to it is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. They can quibble amongst themselves and arbitrarily educe whatever nonsense they wish . . . but it would be nonsense nonetheless!
Except you know that I have and found them ALL equally arbitrary and without merit.
As Konraden and I are pointing out, theologically based morality is filled with ambiguity, arbitrariness, caveats and reinterpretations. Of course we know why, since they were developed by the same humans who have devised secular concepts of morality.
As Konraden and I are pointing out, theologically based morality is filled with ambiguity, arbitrariness, caveats and reinterpretations. Of course we know why, since they were developed by the same humans who have devised secular concepts of morality.
Our human fallibility and incompetence in discerning the absolute morals in no way refutes their EXISTENCE . . . or the irrelevance of morality if they do NOT! Sam Harris has an interesting approach consistent with my views on the use of science. If there ARE absolute morals (in accord with a raison d'etre) . . . science is a capable venue for establishing useful input into our logic and reasoning for ascertaining them . . . as are inspiration and intuition. Of course for me . . . with a certainty of the true nature of the source of life . . . it is easier to make the difficult decisions.
Our human fallibility and incompetence in discerning the absolute morals in no way refutes their EXISTENCE . . . or the irrelevance of morality if they do NOT! Sam Harris has an interesting approach consistent with my views on the use of science. If there ARE absolute morals (in accord with a raison d'etre) . . . science is a capable venue for establishing useful input into our logic and reasoning for ascertaining them . . . as are inspiration and intuition. Of course for me . . . with a certainty of the true nature of the source of life . . . it is easier to make the difficult decisions.
So what are these absolute morals and where are they written in all of their glorious absolutism?
So what are these absolute morals and where are they written in all of their glorious absolutism?
It's also important to note that if humans are entirely incapable of figuring out what these absolute morals are, they are meaningless to human existence, their existence or non-existence entirely irrelevant. This being the case, humans most again devise their own morality.
So what are these absolute morals and where are they written in all of their glorious absolutism?
If we accept that there is a raison d'etre for human life . . . we can extract them from the panoply of human existence. If we reject the raison d'etre . . . it would be a supreme waste of time. The basics are written in the entirety of recorded human experience . . . which provides more than sufficient exemplars of the truly good and constructively edifying to life . . . as well as the truly evil and wholly destructive to life. Unfortunately . . . our task is to discern them using our full human capabilities (left and right brain faculties with a full acceptance that such absolute morals DO EXIST) and establish them into a consensus. We are terrible at it . . . especially because so many of us retain belief in the complete arbitrariness of them. I was encouraged to see that Sam Harris does not. I do not exempt the religionists from this debacle with their dogmatic insistence on primitive conceptions and cultural anomalies as absolute truth.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 03-31-2010 at 12:59 PM..
If we accept that there is a raison d'etre for human life we can extract them [morals I presume] from the panoply of human existence.
Ah, that is what we have been saying through out this thread.
Quote:
The basics are written in the entirety of recorded human experience which provides more than sufficient exemplars of the truly good and constructively edifying to life as well as the truly evil and wholly destructive to life.
Ditto, thanks for confirming the premise of the thread.
As Konraden put it:
It's also important to note that if humans are entirely incapable of figuring out what these absolute morals are, they are meaningless to human existence, their existence or non-existence entirely irrelevant. This being the case, humans most again devise their own morality.
Ah, that is what we have been saying through out this thread.
Ditto, thanks for confirming the premise of the thread.As Konraden put it:
It's also important to note that if humans are entirely incapable of figuring out what these absolute morals are, they are meaningless to human existence, their existence or non-existence entirely irrelevant. This being the case, humans most again devise their own morality.
No fair extracting and misrepresenting my post. Remember the "If we accept that there is a raison d'etre for human life . . . with a full acceptance that such absolute morals DO EXIST" parts??
[/indent][/indent]No fair extracting and misrepresenting my post. Remember the "If we accept that there is a raison d'etre for human life . . . with a full acceptance that such absolute morals DO EXIST" parts??
The meaning to life is continuance of life. I already admitted that this is as close as you get to a transcendental reason for morality. However, morality is just the system of rules that we decide to live by: animals don't have a complex oral structure as we do. We have that complexity because we've been reasoning over the past 10,000 years what is and is not good for each other. A lot of these morals can be deduced to simple self-interest. We each mutually agree not to kill each other. Voila, "thou shall not kill."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
