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Originally Posted by roachboy
presumably amongst a community of believers there'd be no distinction between beneficial outcomes and following the god character's latest whim (old testament stylee)...these ethical questions quickly get circular though.
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They may think so, but the facts say otherwise. One of the most consistent whims in the Bible is that of divorce only being allowable within a very strict set of parameters. How many Christians are against divorce? Some, I suppose, but the majority have progressed with the rest of their society and now Christians enjoy a very high rate of divorce. The level of asunder tearing going on tells me that these people are just as relativistic as you or I. They say their morality is based on the Bible, but that's partially true at best. Why? There's often a wide distinction between beneficial outcomes and following the Bible. Sure, love your neighbor and all that, but stoning people to death for blasphemy or not being a virgin on one's wedding night are clearly vestiges from ancient and (relatively) archaic moral systems.
It only pretends to be circular. Everyone's a relativist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
ethics is an expression of a consensus that because it's instituted functions to generate consensus. the relativism argument isn't really any different from the god character structurally---it simply places some arbitrarily defined community which is a community a priori because it agrees on certain positions vis-a-vis, in that case "the saudis" in a position to pass judgment on "the saudis" in the name of their "ethics"---which are merely the expression of the consensus that made of them a community in the first place. it's like the scorpion and the frog story.
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No paraphrase Neo: "Change. The problem is change." The Bible as it exists now will likely remain in the same form for many, many generations. The same lessons about stoning your daughter for hooking up with the quarterback before marriage have been there for hundreds of years and will remain there for hundreds of years. Relativism doesn't have that significant drawback. For example, in your lifetime we saw a fundamental change in the morality of abortion in our society. In my lifetime we're undoubtedly going to see a fundamental change in the morality of being gay (lgbt). You don't get that with a book of edicts. Sure, religions try their very best to adapt, but if you care to crack open the book, the outdated morality's still there: slavery, women as property, racism, etc.
I do get what you're saying, that in a way they're just different incarnations of the same basic thing, but you can't discount the adaptive nature of relativism compared to the rigidity of absolutism. It's their fundamental difference.