Atheists only vote please: Do absolute MORAL truths exist? Is Rape ALWAYS "wrong"?

[JuliaL]

[Pyrrho]

Hey Losty I think I'm confusing myself, I'm talking specifically about "homicide", which means "killing a human being" it its simplest form. There isn't a translated word for "murder" in Portuguese so basically "murder" for me means "homicide", sorry. Language barriers suck

I recommend that you start with oxforddictionaries dot com and then go to wikipedia for these things, to understand the meanings of these various English words. Of course, for the full legal meanings, you would have to dig even deeper (and that would vary according to particular country), but as most of us (presumably) are not lawyers, going deeper will not be necessary.

"Killing" is probably the most neutral word, so you might want to keep it handy for future use.

[Mudhammam]

[Angrboda]

I guess I don't get a vote.

Irreconciled good intentions. I think the question was more intended to probe the question of how rape or anything immoral is wrong, rather than whether or not this specific act itself is.

[Pyrrho]

Rape is always wrong no matter how you try to justify it or twist it.

Is that truly difficult for some people to understand?

Evidently, it is. And that is very sad.

[JuliaL]

[Losty]

Would morality be relevant if you were a duck?

[Kitan Etos]

Would morality be relevant if you were a duck?

Ask an animal right's activist.

[JuliaL]

Would morality be relevant if you were a duck?

Disclaimer: I have never been a duck.

But if I were, I expect there would be situations I would consider better or worse, hence right or wrong constituting duck morality.

I try to see things from different perspectives. In the case of fellow humans, this is a direct extrapolation to 'How would I feel if I were in their shoes.'
This is pretty much straight empathy.
I extend this to non-humans with similar brain/body mass ratios, chimpanzees, whales, elephants.
The extrapolation gets more shaky. But for our closest relatives the chimps, I have little sympathy for the contention that 'They are JUST animals.' when they exhibit behaviors sufficient for me to grant them full humanity if they had been genetically fully human instead of only 95%. This puts me at odds with those who would revolt at medical experiments done on other races of human while fully condoning any experimentation done on non-human primates. I find the attitudes of mid 20th century Americans towards syphilis experiments on African Amerians and 21st century human chauvinists towards experiments on chimps to be entirely parallel and unacceptable.

[Dystopia]

I support animal "rights", but I don't think morality applies to animals.