Quote:
Originally posted by chavos
It's not about occam's razor or anything like that. TRUE athism means that there is no Right and no Wrong, simply human opinion. That's fine...until you see evil in all it's complexity and pervasiveness. How do you confront the aftermath of people who kill, violate, and abuse? The true athiest's answer is that he or she does not care for such things, but that it is not wrong in an absolute sense beyond offending the sensibilities of others.
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In that case I am a "true" atheist. Right and wrong are just social constructions. That said, they are very IMPORTANT social constructions. Without our inherrent sense of right and wrong (or aquired sense, whichever you prefer) our society would be absolute pandemonium.
However, I don't believe in a universal right and wrong. Such things are always subjective. Something may
seem wrong to you, or it may
seem wrong to the vast majority of people, but a large number of subjective opinions does not equal fact.
To illustrate with an analogy:
I also don't believe in beauty. That doesn't stop me from appreciating art and music, which I find beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is quite a cliche phrase, but many people don't seem to really undersatnd what it means.
No object has an inherrent property of beauty. The "beauty" of an object is
projected on to it by its observers. So nothing
is beuautiful, yet I see beauty in many things!
Similarly, nothing
is right or wrong, but I consider many things right or wrong. Most importantly, what I consider to be right or wrong is ONLY an opinion, nothing more.