05-17-2002, 11:19 AM
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Live Hard - Die Hard
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Ready to leave...
Posts: 17,042
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Quote:
Originally posted by UnseenWorld
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."
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I think I do agree with that. I can't really compare myself though because I have been raised in a Catholic family and I do still hold many of the same morals and ideas as my family, but I choose not to associate those ideas and such with religion for various reasons.
The Golden Rule is good. |
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