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Originally posted by Sly_RJ
My philosophy exactly. I'm "better" than most of the religious people I know. Funny how that works...
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I'm not religious, but I do believe that ethics makes no sense without at least a belief in absolutes. In other words, you can't build a true ethic around an ethics of relativism ("everyone has their own right and wrong" or "what's right for one person can be wrong for someone else").
Why? Well, pedophilia might feel right to someone who belongs to NAMBLA, whereas to other people it would seem wrong. But to claim it's wrong, you need to refer to something absolute. Otherwise, it's just a vote and pedophilia isn't REALLY wrong, it's just what some people think, and other people think differently.
The absolute doesn't have to be God. It can be a sort of platonic ethical reality existing behind everyday existence.
However, I feel that if you do believe in God, a God who actually cares whether you murder somebody, cheat on your taxes (or your wife), or litter the streets would seem to be better than something more abstract, like Paul Tillich's "Ground of Being."