Without God, Can There Be Objective Rules Of Right And Wrong?

[Anna]

ahem

[Franko47]

There can be no real objective rules of right and wrong because everything requires a context. This is one of the problems with religious indoctrination. The moment I send a curve ball towards a fundamentalist, they stammer around, leaf through their Bible; even speculate about what "probably" God would "say" about such a thing.

 

My favourite being the riddle of the fox-hunt. In short, you have to decide whether to lie to the fox-hunters (to save the fox) or tell them the path the fox took (certain death from the hounds)

 

 

It's amazing that there are so many educated people in this day and age that have trouble believing that they can discern what is right and wrong on their own. That they need some kind of Cosmic authority to ratify it all; right down to whether it's OK to give the homeless guy a dollar or look at some porn.

 

 

On the other hand, I know an atheist who is still in love with the "popular opinion" deal. "Well, society finds drinking liquor acceptable, but smoking pot is not. It's wrong."

 

No wonder we burned so many "witches". In between "popular morality" and "religious authority", we've never really ever had a chance. Have we ?

 

 

The 21st century, indeed.