I want to talk about relative morality and how it applies or does not apply to religious doctrine. Religion is based around absolute morality, The concept of some stuff being absolutely evil and not to be performed under any circumstance. I have nothing against Moral universalism, there could be a universal scale of ethics in which one action is demonstrably worse than the other, However moral absolutism is complete hogwash, even though an action can be categorized as immoral in almost all cases. There will always be a situation that can hypothetically exist that the action can be constituted as moral.
This is more of a show stopper for absolutist religion than it seems. For example assuming the christian god exists and you are a christian(assuming you are one), you go to school one day and happen to meet the Antichrist. What if the Antichrist told you to get his number? This is about as obvious a moral absolute in the christian faith as there can be. You should not get the Antichrist to brand you with his number! I doubt there are many Christians who would argue that point. Most Christians would not get his number in such a situation. Even if the Antichrist told you to get his number and that if you refuse it would be at the peril of your life. If you are a christian, the choice to refuse his number is dictated to you within the bible as an absolute.
What if the antichrist told you to get his number and that if you refuse it would be at the peril not of your own life, but that of the lives of a class of innocent children? This is the spawn of the literal devil(assuming he exists) so of course he is going to play dirty. Is the moral absolutism dictated to you by religion oblivious to the lives and plight of a class of innocent children. Would you doom these children to death for your assurance to heaven. What if it went further than that, what if by taking the antichrist’s symbol, you somehow prevent the symbol from being offered to the class of innocent children. Would the absolutism dictated to you by the holy scriptures mandate you to take the symbol and save the children from eternal punishment or not to take the symbol but remain righteous? Would you take it to save the children or not take it to save yourself?
Now all is highly hypothetical and most likely not possible to Christians and even to me.I don't believe their god exists and they don't believe that their god is such a malicious god and would put them in that situation. But i can construct a less hypothetical situation more closer to our current reality that bears the same weight and has a realer chance of happening. What if some Muslim terrorists told you to denounce your god at the cost of a class of innocent children. You have to remember,according to christian fiction, if you denounce jesus in front of whatever or whoever in mortal realm, He said in his scriptures that he would denounce you on judgement day in the immortal realm. According to the moral absolutism practiced today by Christians, there does not exist an argument that says it is OK to save those innocent children by denouncing god. I believe many a christian out there would let innocent children die for their belief in god. Even if god and heaven existed, is this right? are they being moral for performing this action? Can their reverence to their god excuse them from deaths of the innocent children?
No,i don't think that moral absolutism exists and can exist in the real world. There will always be a situation that can not be defined by any clear cut rules written beforehand. It is up to the individual to use the Moral universalistic senses within ourselves to ask, Is this moral or immoral? is this right or wrong? and this has to be done without quoting the holy ‘rulebooks’.
P.S: Christianity twists itself in knots with the issue of moral absolutism. Is contraception immoral or moral? by preventing a obviously bad situation easily(Microcephaly), is it a sin?
Why is it not possible to throw away these stifling rules and dogmas that bind one to such stiff thinking and just use your innate moral sense and not a black and white unrealistic rule to know if it is right or wrong. Think outside the box or in this case outside the book!
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/4594/contraception_congo_nuns_choosing_the_lesser_evil_and_conflict_of_commandments.aspx
P.S: Christianity twists itself in knots with the issue of moral absolutism. Is contraception immoral or moral? by preventing a obviously bad situation easily(Microcephaly), is it a sin?
Why is it not possible to throw away these stifling rules and dogmas that bind one to such stiff thinking and just use your innate moral sense and not a black and white unrealistic rule to know if it is right or wrong. Think outside the box or in this case outside the book!
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/4594/contraception_congo_nuns_choosing_the_lesser_evil_and_conflict_of_commandments.aspx
