iano responds to me:
quote:
As I have long stated, there are moral absolutes and everyone is moral absolutist. That we break and bend the rules we know exist doesn't impact on the fact that we know the rule exists and agree that it is a good rule.
You do realize that the second sentence contradicts the first one, yes?
If you break and bend the rules, then you are necessarily a relativist. That hardly means that you don't believe in rules or think that the rule is bad. It's that you understand that it doesn't always apply in every single situation.
quote:
What we do is suppress our knowledge of the moral absolute in order to have our way.
Which necessarily means you are not an absolutist but are a relativist: Morals have to interact with each other and the situation will determine which moral imperative is the one that will be followed. This is how people who claim to be "pro-life" can turn right around and advocate the death penalty. "All life is precious," they'll say, but then claim that a person who has committed a heinous crime doesn't deserve to live anymore, that the ultimate punishment must be meted out. They'll justify it by referring to things like "innocence," but there is a clear contradiction in moral standards: All life cannot be precious if some lives are not worth being allowed to continue.
quote:
But the fact that someone steals doesn't alter their acknowledging stealing to be wrong.
Always exactly the same way wrong in every single instance, no matter what, and thus every single person who commits theft should receive the exact same punishment? If I know that you're going to shoot somebody and I steal your gun so that you can't, I'm in the wrong? I should be punished as severely as, say, Bernie Madoff?
Can you show me anybody, anywhere who has ever followed their complete set of moral standards every single time?
Not even Jesus or the god of your holy book managed to do that.
If your god can't manage to be absolute regarding morality, why on earth are you complaining that mere mortals don't do it, either?
Rrhain
Thank you for your submission to
Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
™ Version 4.2
