Quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlich
Oh yes they do. When a society as a whole determines that something is bad, it is bad. period. Anyone doing the "bad" thing is a criminal/amoral/bad. Thus, this moral system is "greater than man", in that it is part of the culture of that society, and any one man typically cannot change that.
You derive your moral authority from a possibly-nonexistant divine source; I derive my moral authority from a definately existing cultural system. I do not need a higher authority than that; I *know* some things are bad, because my culture says they are. That is all I need.
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I think that you're just tripping up over words.
The point is, that what society as a whole deems ethical is not absolute.
to quote my earlier post, a large number of subjective opinions does not equal objective fact.
So I would agree with you about what we define as ethical, and how we atheists can still live principled lives. But without an "absolute" figure of authority, we cannot claim that what society deems as good or bad
is good or bad.