(September 6, 2013 at 5:17 pm)Ryantology Wrote: We're the ones hit with the tag 'moral relativists', as if acknowledging the reality of morals is somehow a negative thing. But, really, Christians are even worse moral relativists than we are.
Most of us would assert that there are certain deliberate actions a person can do to another person which are acceptable under no possible circumstances. Rape is one. Slavery is another. Mass killings, for a third. Killing, acceptable only in self-defense. We may debate the philosophical value of good and evil, but in a practical sense, few people would justify these behaviors.
Unless God is the one doing them.
Ask a Christian why God gets a pass and your answer will be threefold. First, God gets to define what is good and what is evil, so he can't, by definition, do evil. Secont, He is all-knowing and therefore is able to 'know' that a person deserves to die or be raped or enslaved. Third, he will remind you that God has the right to do whatever he wants, because he created everything.
What we have here is obvious: the assertion that good and evil are entirely relative to the power and knowledge a being has. To the Christian, morals are relative because the only apply to humans. God is not subject to his own rules and does not follow them.
God is depicted as a being who is different from us in many ways, yet also very similar. His thought processes are very much like ours. He is obviously subject to many of the same negative emotions and personality traits, as well. He is angry, impatient, pitiless, egotistical, and jealous.
It's obvious that absolute morality is impossible, because God does not live up to his own moral code. Whether or not he must is irrelevant. If the acts God calls evil are inherently evil, then he himself is also evil for committing them. If they are only evil when humans do them, then good and evil are relative and the Christian moral code is based on a single being's opinions. This is why you have psychopaths like John V and Waldorf and GC advocating and glorifying genocide, as long as it is being properly directed, whereas normal human beings, keeping more to the spirit of 'thou shalt not kill', consider genocide absolutely objectionable.
To a Christian, evil stops being evil once you surpass an arbitrary level of power and knowledge, regardless of the action. What is this but relativism?
There is a big difference between justifying a philosophical position - like moral relativism or moral absolutism - and scrambling to cover your ass. Christian have to start by arguing that their morality is absolute, because otherwise, there would be no reason for anyone else to follow their crazy religious commandments. And when they see their own god breaking those moral commandments, they have to scramble for an explanation - "those morals don't apply to him", "they deserved or would've done something to deserve it and therefore deserved it", "god's plan in unclear and yet to be revealed - but it'll be ultimately good" and so on.
The point is, if you are seriously considering the philosophical positions of moral relativism vs absolutism, then don't bring in Christian apologetics because they only serve to make their side look ridiculous. On the other hand, if you are just baiting local Christards - go right ahead.
