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Subject: 
Re: Is lgbt dead in the water?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 14 Oct 2004 16:17:08 GMT
Viewed: 
1206 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lee Meyer wrote:
   Hi Dave, well I certainly can tell by your views you are a moral relativist from your distorted definition of tolerance. There are absolutes in the world. Moral, logical absolutes. There are universal truths that apply to everyone, across all times and places and circumstances. Murder is always wrong.

That’s true, if viewed in a certain light. Murder is always wrong, but societies define “murder” according to their own sense of morality. Many people would consider executing criminals to be murder. Texans do not. Many people would consider abortion to be murder. Pro-choice advocates do not. Many people would consider hacking down a peasant with a sword for no reason to be murder. Samurai did not. Many people would consider ripping peoples’ still-beating hearts out of their chests and racing them to the top of a shrine to be murder. The Aztecs did not. Oh yeah, and how many States have laws regarding “justifiable homicide”?

   Two plus two is always four.

In mathematics involving Base 5 or higher, yes. In Base 3, 2+2=11. In Base 4, 2+2=10. In Base 2 (binary), “2” doesn’t exist, so it would instead be 10+10=100.

   You cannot simultaneously be both for and against the same side of an issue and be right on both sides.

It always depends on the issue at hand. What about the favorite modern Christian parable involving the man who has to choose between raising the drawbridge and killing his only son who is playing amongst the gears, and not raising the drawbridge which would cause an approaching passenger ship which (for whatever reason) can’t stop in time to avoid a catastrophic collision? Can you honestly say that there is only one moral choice that could be made in that situation?

   Just tell me if you are positive, without any doubt whatsoever, that there are no moral absolutes, a easy yes or no answer.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d say no, there are not. Not with our current level of knowledge, at least. Most historical instances of someone presenting society with claims of moral absolutes have been in the name of one religion or another. Since noone has been able to successfully prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that one particular religion/denomination is the One True Religion (and that includes Atheism), no moral claim can be honestly held to be absolute unless every person in the history of humanity can at least nominally be proven to have held that belief.



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Is lgbt dead in the water?
 
(...) Many people view atheism as a belief system rather than a religion. Your points still stand, nonetheless, but I did want to point it out. I'll go farther, and state that I feel that people who consistently call atheism a religion are, in my (...) (20 years ago, 15-Oct-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
  Re: Is lgbt dead in the water?
 
(...) The problem you're citing is basically one of semantics, so I don't think it's a good refutation of Lee's posited mathematical absolute. Whether you refer to "four" as 10 or IV or cuatro or 4, the underlying numeric principle is the same, and (...) (20 years ago, 18-Oct-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Is lgbt dead in the water?
 
(...) Hi Dave, well I certainly can tell by your views you are a moral relativist from your distorted definition of tolerance. There are absolutes in the world. Moral, logical absolutes. There are universal truths that apply to everyone, across all (...) (20 years ago, 13-Oct-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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