Orthodox1 said:
It should be obvious that no action is intrinsically 'evil', as the term is a judgment based on RELATIVE (not absolute) definitions and values.
Isn't that just your opinion based on relativism?.. The idea that all moral concepts are relative to the individual is an ideology based on an absence of God and morality (which is not provable but requires a sort of faith), which goes contrary to the world-wide agreement on fundamental human laws we all tend toward, even the non-religious. All would say murder is wrong, for instance, even without God's revelations through religion. This belief is coded in our very DNA.
You have a very different understanding of the term 'moral relativism' than I, where your definition is commonly seen on religious sites.
The Xians who run AllAboutGod.com actually bought the domain name for http://www.moral-relativism.com/ where you find THEIR attempt to redefine the term (in a balderdashed move at straw-manning moral relativism):
Moral relativism is the view that ethical standards, morality, and positions of right or wrong are culturally based and therefore subject to a person's individual choice. We can all decide what is right for ourselves. You decide what's right for you, and I'll decide what's right for me. Moral relativism says, "It's true for me, if I believe it."
I'd agree, up to the point where they changed the definition to include this: "and therefore subject to a person's individual choice; hence we can all decide for ourselves."
Nope. (That actually sounds more like a Xian definition of religious truths, where people feel they are allowed to justify the existence of God by saying, "It's true for me, if I believe it." Nope: reality doesn't care if you believe in it or not: it just IS...)
But back on point: moral relativism is NOT a synonym for anarchy, or calling for complete automony wherein each person decides their own laws, right and wrong. Obviously citizens HAVE to follow the laws and behavioral norms of their land, at their detriment if they don't (eg prison, fines, etc).
I know, the definition they provide is the kind of straw-man that Xians would LOVE relativists to have, but it's a bald-faced lie. That kind of redefining of the term is intellectually dishonest.
Reality is, most forms of moral relativism implies that moral absolutes don't exist as FIXED, ABSOLUTE, UNIVERSAL values, but their position on the scale between 'good' and 'bad' CHANGES, and is determined RELATIVE to other positions (depending on which culture(s) you're looking at and comparing, and even within a single culture the position changes with time).
Certainly you can accept that, as ancient Hebrews condemned sex with a menstruating as a grave sin, on par with murder and idolatry, but most cultures don't see it that way today (including Jews, Catholics, etc). Why not? Because ultural values have changed with time: hence what once was considered illegal and a grave sin against the Land of Israel is now legal, and often not a sin.
Oh, on this:
All would say murder is wrong, for instance, even without God's revelations through religion. This belief is coded in our very DNA.
There is no anti-murder "universal morality" gene found in our DNA. Why would people commit murder, if there were?
Where do you get that nonsense? You need to take a basic genetics course, as that statement was just ignorant of DNA....
The idea that morality is relative to the individual, when deep jungle societies have similar commandments as the Judeo-Christian word, is not a likely or new or reasonable idea.
You clearly have never studied cultural anthropology, and hence are unaware of the morality of hunter-gatherer tribal cultures, such as the classic Yanomomo tribe in the Amazon, where murder and tribal warfare is common:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami
Regarding the differences in definition of a country and a religion, I do not make much distinctions here, but only compare one large body with agreed-upon principals with another large body of agreed-upon principals. We can easily destinguish between religion and country all day long, but that is not my point. My intention here is to point out that there is "evil", or if you prefer "societal contrarians" among us who do not speak for the entire body, but only speak for their evil, or misconduct within the parameters of agreed-upon principals.
Sorry, but 'societal contrarian' is not a suitable synonym for 'evil': the term carries the unmistakeable taint of God-defined morality all over it. I know you cannot see that, since we often become blind to that which we are so immersed in, that you cannot even see it.
My point was you wanted to compare a particular COUNTRY to a particular RELIGION: one is a GOVERNMENT and the other is a RELIGION. Hence it's a useless overly-broad comparison....
If you want to compare Catholic version of morality to another group, compare to, say, Mormons, JWs, or Shintoists.
If the Church says murder is wrong, and one murders, the individual is wrong, not the Church. If some Americans owned slaves, they would be wrong, contrary to the "life, liberty, and persuit of happiness" promised to all who were "created equal", but America herself would not wrong. Try again. That's utterly wrong. From Chapter 1, Article 1, of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, “every human being has the right to life, liberty and security of his person.” Federal, state, and local governments are obligated to protect and affirmatively guarantee the human rights of all its residents, whether foreign-born or not, regardless of their ethnicity, color, religion, race, etc. The US Gov't has been sued many times throughout history for systematically violating the civil rights of groups of citizens AND/OR for failure to protect the civil rights of some citizens from other citizens. The most obvious example that comes to my mind is the Japanese-Americans who were placed in internment camps during WWII, even under the name of doing so for their own protection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment In 1988, Congress passed and PresidentRonald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation said that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership". [12] The U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6 billion in reparations to Japanese Americans who had been interned and their heirs. [13] If that's not an example of America having been wrong and apologizing, including making reparations to families of victims, then lay it on me. We have a civil rights lawyer on the forum: they could provide MANY MORE examples....
