(December 7, 2013 at 3:17 pm)Sleepy Wrote: One of the illogical things about atheists is their belief in relativity in everything. There is no absolutes in anything.
I am an atheist and that misrepresents what I believe. Your description is from the outside. Some might think that stoning women and sending them out in suicide vests for their political ends is the essence of Islam. But then they would be guilty of demonstrating as little insight or empathy for what Islam is as you demonstrate toward atheism. Like you, they would just be latching onto surface features of a mindset that isn't their own and using it to characterize the whole of it. The person who calls you a towel head is equivalent to, but no worse than, you are yourself.
Personally I acknowledge absolutes for myself. I am not empowered to force any absolutes on others and neither do I miss doing so. The fact that we have civil institutions for imposing consequences on individuals for asocial behavior is sufficient for me. The fact that, whatever the basis for our morality, we are able to come together and agree on and institute a common justice system shows that there is enormous similarity in our subjective sentiment in moral matters.
The absolutes I get through introspection aren't third-person absolutes, they are first-person absolutes. Certain kinds of asocial behavior feel bad to do. Disregarding the humanity of others feels bad to do. If my inner absolutes were different then I might well act differently. But they are my absolutes - truths about me that inform who I think I am.
That may not be enough for you. You might prefer to get your absolutes screamed at you by some indignant mullah. But really coercion is not really an adequate path to knowledge. And the opportunity to scream invectives at those we disagree with probably means more to you that it does to me.
