Buddy's Comment 7: If there are no absolutes, anything is allowed, at some time or some place. Man, in general, has a need to have moral boundaries. Our government is based on the principle that power be balanced among the 'rulers', lest that power be abused; it has been extolled as being the epitome of human government.
My Response to Comment 7:
"If there is no absolutes, anything is allowed, at some time or some place."
Hmm. Well, not really. I believe that their are social pressures that come into play when members of communities act outsides of the social norms. It is homeostasis... equilibrium at work. You say anything is "allowed" but that's just not true. Revolutions happen because social pressure acts to return communal behaviors to homeostasis. Cultural norms work because people act (cooperatively or in isolation) to rein in extreme behaviors. If this were not the case, there would be no word "ostracism", but there is because it exists and it works. Abberant behaviors may not be prevented from starting, but they can be stopped and/or mitigated. Which is more than I can say for the efficacy of devine intervention. Where was God in Rwanda, for instance? I'd say neither absolute or relative morality has produced a particularly well behaved populous. Try another arguement.
In Electrical engineering, in Electronics especially, when a (control) circuit mitigates a signal that has no limits, it 'runs away', usually to a big blowup. When there are controls, 'dampeners' the wild and crazy signals 'ring down' and become steady state, or resonate at an optimum frequency. This is your 'homeostasis'. As in electronics, when the circuit is 'controlled', it is because something was designed in to 'control'. As before, in earlier posts/e-mails, you more than alluded to the presupposition that these controls were self-generated, devised by the system itself to control itself. It doesn't happen on a circuit board, without a designer putting the caps, resistors, and ICs to limit the signal swings; and it doesn't happen in any culture. You cannot assume that the 'controls' in any society developed, based on your belief in the non-existence of a designer, because what the designer has instilled in to the system has 'spoiled' the test group. There is no 'control group' in this experiment to prove that the absolutes were not designed in.
ReplyDeleteUsing a metaphor: believing a forest grows in a particular way, based on environment and other factors, ignores the fact that somehow the first tree took root at the heart of what became the forest. You see a forest, and ignore that there has to be trees, planted there first. Sorry if that metaphor is 'off the wall', but it is one way of explaining the inside-out axiom: not seeing the trees for the forest.
I totally agree with several of the points that you use, (e.g.: homeostasis, ostracism and aberrant behaviors not being prevented), but argue that you don't have those points without a designer who laid out the circuit.
If I may be 'trite' briefly... There is an anecdote about three scientists who approach god and tell him he is no longer needed; they can show life starting without His intervention. Humoring them, He suggests they prove it. They reach down to pick up some dirt to start the process, and are halted. God tells them, "wait a minute; you need to go and find your own dirt." Yes trite, and probably a little blasphemous, but it underlines my other metaphor above. you can't say morals and absolutes evolved, because it is integral to man's design.
As for Rwanda. or any other abhorrent or horrific human behavior, I won't presume to demand God prove himself by intervening in these man-made disasters, not stop being a 'believer' because He doesn't.
So, does anything go? It usually does for those who don't acknowledge God., more often than for those who do.
Oh Horse Hockey!
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