How do you respond to, "...if the people from all the world see right and wrong differently then right and wrong is not absolute."

Thanks.

j

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J. M. - Baptist - Ontario, Canada - Feileadh Mor

"Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience. But nothing is a greater cause of suffering."
The Brothers Karamazov

This is the Ad Populum fallacy. Just because a majority holds to a belief does not make it true.

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David Morrow
Faith Community Church
Kansas City, MO
http://presupposetheism.blogspot.com

I agree and have written posts against moral relitivism, but I need a short and simple way to express moral absolutes...I can't think right now.

Thanks.

Those who adhere to this kind of statement are making an absolute statement about right and wrong!

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Independent Reformed Baptist Church (NE England, nr. Durham)

The Creator hardwired man with the law (written on their hearts) to assure that man would follow in the image of God, sharing his value system. For as much as the fall resulted in a deviation from that image, we have sinned. The standard, however, has not changed one iota.

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Bob Vigneault (Bawb Vēēn-yo)
I just know there's got to be a pony in here somewhere!

The Heartbeat of Heaven (blog) MySpace (Music), MySpace (Personal)
Member of Christ Presbyterian Church, Janesville, WI OPC www.christ-opc.org

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

People see this statement differently too (some agree, some disagree), therefore by it's own premise, this statement is not absolute.

It's always entertaining seeing relativists arguing for anything...

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Polo
Layman, Chinese Evangelical Church/Independent
San Diego

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. (Romans 11:36)

I don’t think this commits the ad populum fallacy. First off, relativism does not follow from disagreement. People disagree over logic, mathematics, philosophy, etc. It does not follow that therefore logic, mathematics, etc. are not objective.

Perhaps it is the *application* of moral values that are disagreed upon, and not the values themselves.

Now here it depends on if the interlocutor holds to moral relativism (usually on the societal level), or moral subjectivism (on the personal level).

On the cultural level, the view defeats itself. The claim that ‘all individuals ought to follow the moral norms of their society’ is itself an objective claim that transcends any given society.

It also cannot explain moral reform. If a society determines what is morally right, then by definition, anybody trying to change that societies morality (like Jesus, Martin Luther King, etc.) are being immoral.

I could go on.

Now let’s look at moral subjectivism. Person P likes x, while person Q likes not-x. Nobody is wrong, as everybody is infallible. Disagreement actually refutes subjective morality, and not objective morality.

To quote Paul Manata from here: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/...-then-god.html

Ironically, it is the moral subjectivist who has the problem with moral disagreement. What is there to disagree about? Take the claim that "abortion is immoral." Now, since I'd like to think the best of you, I'll assume that you think abortion is immoral. :-) We will then look at Theresa, who thinks abortion morally acceptable. On your position, your subjectivism boils down to the position that:

--Malcolm agrees that abortion is immoral

--Theresa agrees that abortion is moral.

Now, as long as the above report true feelings, then neither of you are wrong. In an uninteresting way, for Theresa to say that Malcolm is wrong, is just to recognize the truism that Malcolm disagrees with Theresa. Neither of you can be mistaken, though. And to the extent that you're both telling the truth, you're both infallible. Thus moral disagreement presupposes the falsity of moral subjectivism and cultural relativism!

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Caleb
Trinity Baptist Church
Spokane, WA

that's an absolute statement about morality.

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

Thanks folks.

Why can't someone say "there are no moral absolutes"? That doesn't seem to be a moral statement.

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Scott Roper
Member, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA): "A bunch of hippie Calvinists"
Winston-Salem, NC

because that person is telling me what I *ought* to believe about morality. He is saying that it is *bad* to believe in absolute morality, which is a moral statement.

In other words, he is assigning value (either good or bad) to moral statements.

So is 1+0=1 also a moral statement?

I think we have moved away from the OP, but I will take it shot.

Are you asking me to *believe* it? If so, then yes, it is a moral statement because you are asking me to believe something that is not true.

Otherwise I don't have to answer the question because it is nonsensical (in the logical sense).

If a culture or a person sees that there is nothing wrong with raping women for the fun of it and there are no moral absolutes, then another culture or person would have no basis for criticizing the moral actions of that culture or person. The act of criticizing the moral actions of another culture or person assumes that there are moral absolutes.

If a person says that there are no absolute moral values, then ask, "Is it an absolute moral value that one should not dump a pot of boiling water on someone else just for the fun of it and laugh about it?".

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Curt Hayashida
member, Community Bible Church (Non-denominational)
Vallejo, CA

exactly. If morals are culturally conditioned or stipulated or by convention, then I can (conveniently) stipulate my own morality on the spot.

Although I never made that argument in my above post, I will give my thoughts. Perhaps if a claim is made *about* morality then it is a moral claim. If this is the case, and the claim that "there are no moral absolutes" is surely a claim about morality, then such a claim is a moral claim. If that is the case then it is self-refuting, for it makes an objective moral claim (as opposed to subjective).

So what I gather is someone can consistantly make the truth claim that there are no moral absolutes as long as he doesn't require anyone else to believe it.

Caleb, "if a claim is made *about* morality then it is a moral claim" is exactly what is in question.

Isn't that exactly what people do anyway?

Just because they do it doesn't make it logically or morally coherent. This is the part of the debate where you pull out a baseball bat, stipulate that there is no morality, and then start hitting the guy. He will get the point after a while.

Yeah I know, which is why I put the word 'Perhaps' in front of it. I think I put the problem in a short and concise manner that is easy to understand.

But it does seem to be logically coherent; we just don't like the results.

The thing about the baseball bat is some people do prefer to settle things with violence. The person attacked will probably prefer not to be attacked and will use whatever means necessary to end the attack.

Let's take the statement "there are no moral absolutes," a universal negative.

It can be restated "all values are relative." We will come back to that.

If all values are relative, then my value is genocide against the Jews.

I am using a reductio to show the absurdity of a statement. It may seem logically coherent, but I do not believe that moral statements and epistemological statements can be evaluated separate from one another.

They don't bother me. If that's how they want to play, so be it.

I am not afraid to engage someone who thinks morality is not absolute, whether they see it as either arbitrary or conditioned. What I like to do is to slowly point the discussion to the fact that in order to propose their views of morality they eventually appeal to a set of morals which by their own standards are not arbitrary at all, but rather seem to be the very absolutes they are denying.

The interesting thing that usually comes of this is that people recognize where this is going. They sense the dead-end that they are headed for. But what interests me is where the they go from there. It is one thing to know the logical conclusions of certain arguments, but it is another to see where people go with their arguments. This can be a lot like music, in that there are so many variations possible on the same theme.

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JohnV

John Vandervliet
Ontario, Canada
member of: Canadian Reformed Church
"In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favour of the facts as they are" C.S Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism