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Old Sun Sep 15, 2002, 10:13pm
Dan_ref Dan_ref is offline
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Re: Re: Dan_fef

Quote:
Originally posted by Oz Referee
Quote:
Originally posted by Dan_ref
... Morality is never relative.

Is it immoral/wrong to eat pork - I say no, a Jew would say yes. Is drinking alcohol immoral - again I say no, a Muslim would say yes. How about corporal punishment of children (ie smacking) - some people consider this immoral - others support it. Eating meat? Vegans would definitely say this is immoral. Is slavery immoral? The average American in the 1800's would have said no.

[/B]
Most of the examples you give here are not morality. They
are dogma:

1.A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an
authoritative manner by a church.


Morality encompasses those behaviors which we can agree
upon as good or evil simply because they uphold or violate
basic rights we all have as humans. Murder (not killing),
rape, and yes, slavery. Can we say that eating pork
violates some basic human right and is evil? No. Can we
agree that premeditated murder, rape or slavery is evil?
Of course we can. Maybe by these simple examples you can see
what I mean.

BTW, it's not so clear that the average American in the
1800's would have agreed with you. Most Americans living
in "the North" would disagree. Most Americans living in
"the South" were not well off enough to own slaves. Anyway,
there was a huge war fought to settle this and other related
matters. Mnay people died simply because they did not
agree with your assertion.
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