As much as I oppose moral relativism, I could only get through the first couple paragraphs of the Prager articles, due to his glaring factual errors. The Talmud is NOT "the second most important religious text to Jews"- the correct answer here would be the Mishnah. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishna ). Also, taking the life of a murderer is NOT only law that is found in all Five Books of Moses (the Torah). He even contradicts himself in the next sentence!
Would you please try to explain your complaints with moral relativism without relying at all on your religious beliefs as supporting evidence? In others words, make an argument devoid of the Biblical concept of evil and good, and other Biblical concepts that permeate most of the moral absolutists positions regarding acts the deem as absolutely wrong, not wrong relative to the situation. (acts....not thoughts, nor motives).
This is a very complex issue, and I'm not capable of explaining it 1/100th as well as many atheist Objectivist authors have already done. I'll find the most suitable articles to post here, and hopefully you'll be ok with that...
So in other words, you can't define your own philosophy, you have to post the ideas of others for you? How nice that you have found something to follow....
Yup. Since I have no talent for making music, I enjoy music composed by others without ever contributing my own. Inventing and explaining complex philosophy: Same as above. If you really want to know how an atheist can reject moral relativism, I strongly suggest reading "The Virtue Of Selfishness" by...(I don't even have to say it, you already know.) In the meantime, here's an article that scratches the surface: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11127&news_iv_ctrl=1021 Moral Values Without Religion Tuesday, May 24, 2005 By: Peter Schwartz The alternative to the dogmatism of the religious right and the emotionalism of the egalitarian left is a code of moral absolutes based on reason and individualism. Does morality depend upon religion? Most people believe it does, which is a major reason behind the appeal of the religious right. People believe that without faith in a supernatural authority, we can have no moral values--no moral absolutes, no black-and-white distinctions, no firm demarcation between good and evil--in life or in politics. This is the assumption underlying Justice Antonin Scalia's recent assertion that "government derives its authority from God," since only religious faith can supposedly provide moral constraints on human action. And what draws people to this bizarre premise--the premise that there is no rational basis for refraining from murder, rape or anarchism? The left's persistent assault on moral values. That is, liberals characteristically renounce moral absolutes in favor of moral grayness. They insist, for example, that criminals should not be reviled, but should be seen as tragic products of their "social environment"--that teenage mothers are just as entitled to welfare checks as wage-earners are to their paychecks, and that to deny welfare benefits for a child born into a family already receiving welfare is, as the ACLU declares, to "unconstitutionally coerce women's reproductive decisions"--that America is morally equivalent to its enemies, with our own policies having provoked the Sept. 11 attacks and our "unilateralist" actions in Iraq being no different from any forcible occupation of one nation by another. Repulsed by such egalitarian, anti-"judgmental" absurdities, many people disavow what they regard as leftism's essence: secularism, and turn to religion for their values. But this is a false alternative. Secularism is simply a viewpoint that disclaims religion; what it embraces, though, may be rational or not. And the absurdities of the left stem precisely from its irrationality--its pervasive emotionalism, its insistence on doing whatever "feels right," its contention that there are no fixed truths, its credo that morality is anything one wishes it to be. The left maintains that no objective principles exist to validate moral judgments. From its multicultural equalization of all societies--savage or civilized--to its belief in an indefinable, "evolving" Constitution, the left rejects the logic of objective standards and enshrines the arbitrariness of subjectivism. Thus, what the left's opponents should disavow is not secularism per se, but rather the replacement of a religious variant of unreason--blind faith--with a secular variant: blind feelings. The real alternative to the leftist claptrap is a morality of reason. Such a morality begins with the individual's life as the primary value and identifies the further values that are demonstrably required to sustain that life. It observes that man's nature demands that we live not by random urges or by animal instincts, but by the faculty that distinguishes us from animals and on which our existence fundamentally depends: rationality. With reason as its cardinal value, this code of individualism espouses fixed principles and categorical moral judgments. It demands, for instance, that the initiation of force--the antithesis of reason--be denounced and that an unbridgeable moral chasm be recognized between the criminal and the non-criminal. Since life requires man to produce what he needs, productiveness is a moral value--thereby making moral opposites out of the industrious worker and the parasitic welfare recipient. Since life requires man to use his own judgment rather than submissively accept the assertions of others, independence is a moral value--making moral opposites out of the person (or nation) acting on his own rational convictions and the one deferring to the consensus of his neighbors (or the U.N.). Since life requires the mind, man's political system must allow him to use it, i.e., freedom is a moral value--making moral opposites out of America, the defender of liberty, and Americaâs enemies, who seek liberty's destruction. A morality of reason counters the relativism and the undiscriminating "tolerance" of the left. It also counters a morality of faith, and establishes a genuine "culture of life." Individualism upholds your sovereignty over your life--and refuses to subordinate the preservation of that life to, say, the preservation of embryonic stem cells in some petri dish. Individualism defends your inalienable right to your life, including your right to end it--and evaluates, say, opposition to assisted-suicide as a desecration of human life, since forcing someone to live who wishes to die is no less evil than forcing someone to die who wishes to live. There is indeed morality without religion--a morality, not of dogmatic commands, but of rational values and of unbreached respect for the life of the individual.
...and one more thing. Do you actually believe that YOU are capable of putting your treasured ideals of egalitarianism and moral relativism into words at the level of Chomsky or Marx???
Prager is a Jew; I assume you are, so I leave you to read the rest of the article if you wish and debate the points contained.
I don't need anyone else to make my logical arguments for me, and when I listen to music, it is not a philosophical process nor a rational analytical one either. I figure, if I can't explain it to someone myself, then I don't own it, I am just mouthing another who rationalizes an emotion I want to hold.... But what the heck? I think it is grand that you have self defined in this forum as a druggie Muslim hating Annie Randi dittohead.....
Why would I trust the perception of a known bigot for objective analysis? Non sequitureeee, fer shuuure. It is as I have said, if people don't want to think for themselves and would rather latch onto the philosophy and ideology of others because it appeals to them on an emotional level, that's grand....most of the world is made of followers.....