Now that I've had a shower and coffee:
You have to hinge a story on some sort of premise - if this is a moral absolute (as I'm understanding it) then the author him(her)self is choosing the absolutes that rule that world created by the story. I've no problem with the idea that something has to be absolute in order to create tension. My problem is that a Judeo-Christian worldview is necessary - that morals have to be understood to come from God - in order for something to be treated as an absolute in fiction.
I can't believe I'm wasting time on this rather than putting on my panty-hose, but here goes:
To go to his example, if we decide as a society that stealing is bad (and we have - we can argue the origin of that law and whether it was Jewish in nature or perhaps codified much earlier than Jews) then we've decided it's an absolute. To my understanding, at least. I don't know where the relativism part comes into this. Perhaps you can correct me, since I don't engage in the mental masturbation that is philosophy. If it is relative because others might not think stealing is bad...well, I'd like to point out that even in Judeo-Christian worldviews there is conflict over what's actually right and wrong - how is that not ALSO relative and requiring a consensus?
A compelling story deals with the building of a point of tension and then the climax, and then the aftermath. This does not require a particular worldview - just a conflict. The rest is up to how the author portrays it. It's also a highly subjective opinion.
You have to hinge a story on some sort of premise - if this is a moral absolute (as I'm understanding it) then the author him(her)self is choosing the absolutes that rule that world created by the story. I've no problem with the idea that something has to be absolute in order to create tension. My problem is that a Judeo-Christian worldview is necessary - that morals have to be understood to come from God - in order for something to be treated as an absolute in fiction.
I can't believe I'm wasting time on this rather than putting on my panty-hose, but here goes:
To go to his example, if we decide as a society that stealing is bad (and we have - we can argue the origin of that law and whether it was Jewish in nature or perhaps codified much earlier than Jews) then we've decided it's an absolute. To my understanding, at least. I don't know where the relativism part comes into this. Perhaps you can correct me, since I don't engage in the mental masturbation that is philosophy. If it is relative because others might not think stealing is bad...well, I'd like to point out that even in Judeo-Christian worldviews there is conflict over what's actually right and wrong - how is that not ALSO relative and requiring a consensus?
A compelling story deals with the building of a point of tension and then the climax, and then the aftermath. This does not require a particular worldview - just a conflict. The rest is up to how the author portrays it. It's also a highly subjective opinion.
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