Absolute Right ?

[whiffey]

Is there such a thing ? Look anywhere, especially the Middle East. Since we will all be dead in the next 100 years, does it matter what happens when we are all ashes ? If there is no life after death, why not just chuck it all in now ? Purpose, is there any, Meaning, is there any. Absolute right. Who cares ? It's nothing more than half-baked philosophy. Let the slaughter continue. No lol on this one.

What is the reason for absolute right if there is no God, it doesn't check out.

[dot.hawkes]

Not a clue never done RE at school I was always sent out for listening to the Top 20 on R one on a Tuesday. Sorry.

[whiffey]

OK dot, much better that you concentrated on your English degree.

[Cobra2]

I dont think the lebonese missiles are in range of the Toon, so let them blow the cr@p outa each other

[dot.hawkes]

It was History With English Whiffey , still can't tell what you have written there, should it perhaps be in News maybe where the brainiacs are?

[Cobra2]

One of my RE teachers (a priest) used to get you to neal in front of the desk with your nose on the edge of a ruler balanced on the end of the desk. If you spoke during class he would slam his hand on the ruler, breaking your nose.

[mazie]

Absolute Right ? Is there such a thing ...I don't believe theres is. One persons right is another persons wrong...so how can there be?

[whiffey]

dot, are you making a tacit admission that there is no longer any point posting anything of depth or value in Body & Soul ?

So philosophy becomes News, or History and Myths.

Religion becomes Home & Garden.

[mazie]

It's good to have a board that you can debate and chat on., far more enlightning than "how are your marigolds growing"

[Cobra2]

can we please have a Q about favorite sandwhich filling.

[whiffey]

Ask one then maestro Cobra, in keeping with the intellectual traditions of B&S. Don't moan off generally, just go and do it.

[dot.hawkes]

So how does all that affect you then ? You asked about five questions that looked like you already had the answers, go on tell us the answers.

[Cobra2]

I dont post B&S Qs anymore.

I have nothing interesting or intellectual to say.

I just like to fight.

[whiffey]

dot it may have 'looked like' it to you, but that is not the case. I just wondered what people thought.

Cobra, how right you are mate !

[rugeleyboy]

it looks to me that your getting bored of all the arguments whiffey??

[whiffey]

I never liked arguments rugeleyboy, banter and friendly chat maybe. For now I am still trying to work out what "neal" means.

[jake-the-peg]

Thinbk you might be on the wrong forum here Whiffey!

For what it's worth, If you are religious you will almost certainly believe that right and wrong exist and can be absolute regardless of whether man exists.

I think one of Thomas Aquinas' proofs of God was to say something like some things are more better/beautiful/good than others - therefore there is a maximum perfect goodness and that is God.

Personally I'd disagree - A Motzart symphony is more beatiful than a cats schreech but that doesn't mean that it's more or less beatiful than a Bach concerto.

I'm an athiest and like pretty much all athiests I'm a moral realtivist and I don't believe in absolute Good or Evil.

A lot of people with a religious background are so bound up in what they were taught that they cannot believe that morality can exist without God.

Yet some of the most moral men like Bertrand Russel or Albert Einstein did not believe in God.

I'd tell you there is no God nor absolute right but there are moral codes

Do nothing that deliberately harms others

Protect those innocent of crimes when it's in your power

And don't come to the end of your life saying "I really wish I'd......"

[rugeleyboy]

ooops, sorry cobra (i had a little snigger!!)

[whiffey]

Thank you jake for a lovely thoughtful answer.

I find Thomas Aquinas arguments for the existence of God very compelling, however ancient.

In the same way I find "The Marriage of Figaro" so uplifting as to be almost part of the same proof.

(I think Albert Einstein did believe in God?)

[jake-the-peg]

Albert Einstein was famous for saying "God does not play dice with the Universe" - He was expressing a fundamental disbelief in the probablistic nature of quantum theory.

This and other quotes were rather deliberately distorted by many people. In 1954 he wrote:

�It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.�

He said many times he believed in Spinoza's God which is really to say that God and Nature are the same thing. He didn't believe in any God that had any sort of interest or concern with man.

[Cobra.]

Where are Sooty and Sweep today ?