Hi everyone,
I'm new to posting on the forums here although I have read them quite a bit. Anyway I'm coming looking for a bit of advice from people with more experience and wisdom then me.
My situation is that there is a guy at my work who is Catholic, when I first discovered he was I just kept waiting for him to come preaching to me and so I had some information about evolution ready in my holster for my defense. I guess perhaps though i was just sterotyping him because he never really said much to me about his faith. anyway it wasn't until just recently that I've come into discussion with him when the topic of abortion/objective truth/and immortal spirits came up.
To sum things up briefly I overheard him saying that he and a friend were going to protest or pray as he said it outside an abortion clinic. I got rather upset at this and finally took it as an opportunity to say something to him. I asked him why he thought he had the right to force his belief's on those women and why he just couldn't respect their right to choose.
His response was different from what I've heard before and I wasn't prepared for it. He gave me a scenario and said something like this: "what if I told you I'm pro choice too and I believe in a man's right to choose and whether or not I agree with his choices I don't think others should be able to force their morality on him and he should be able to choose for himself."
I agreed with him. then he said "ok well that is why I am pro-rape, I mean I'm personally against rape but that's my morality and I don't think I should be allowed to force it on other people, they should have the right to choose for themselves."
Of course he wasn't pro rape but he had made his point and I guess it got to me.
Anyways this slid into a discussion about moral absolutes and objective truth. He made the argument that choices have to be restricted when they violate moral absolutes. We didn't really have time to finish our whole discussion and so I didn't have a chance to say a whole lot after that.
So in summary my real question is I need to know more about the whole debate of objective truth before I go back to talk with him. We got into it a little bit and so I heard some of his rebuttals already.
I guess the thing I don't know how to explain to him that he brought up to me is how I can disbelief in objective truth in theory but not in practice. He seemed to think it is sort of inescapable and that everyone really believed in it whether they realized it or not.
So please any advice that anyone can give me on the situation would be helpful, I just want to be prepared for our next encounter so I don't go out looking like a fool.
Thanks guys
I'm new to posting on the forums here although I have read them quite a bit. Anyway I'm coming looking for a bit of advice from people with more experience and wisdom then me.
My situation is that there is a guy at my work who is Catholic, when I first discovered he was I just kept waiting for him to come preaching to me and so I had some information about evolution ready in my holster for my defense. I guess perhaps though i was just sterotyping him because he never really said much to me about his faith. anyway it wasn't until just recently that I've come into discussion with him when the topic of abortion/objective truth/and immortal spirits came up.
To sum things up briefly I overheard him saying that he and a friend were going to protest or pray as he said it outside an abortion clinic. I got rather upset at this and finally took it as an opportunity to say something to him. I asked him why he thought he had the right to force his belief's on those women and why he just couldn't respect their right to choose.
His response was different from what I've heard before and I wasn't prepared for it. He gave me a scenario and said something like this: "what if I told you I'm pro choice too and I believe in a man's right to choose and whether or not I agree with his choices I don't think others should be able to force their morality on him and he should be able to choose for himself."
I agreed with him. then he said "ok well that is why I am pro-rape, I mean I'm personally against rape but that's my morality and I don't think I should be allowed to force it on other people, they should have the right to choose for themselves."
Of course he wasn't pro rape but he had made his point and I guess it got to me.
Anyways this slid into a discussion about moral absolutes and objective truth. He made the argument that choices have to be restricted when they violate moral absolutes. We didn't really have time to finish our whole discussion and so I didn't have a chance to say a whole lot after that.
So in summary my real question is I need to know more about the whole debate of objective truth before I go back to talk with him. We got into it a little bit and so I heard some of his rebuttals already.
I guess the thing I don't know how to explain to him that he brought up to me is how I can disbelief in objective truth in theory but not in practice. He seemed to think it is sort of inescapable and that everyone really believed in it whether they realized it or not.
So please any advice that anyone can give me on the situation would be helpful, I just want to be prepared for our next encounter so I don't go out looking like a fool.
Thanks guys
