I'm talking about moral absolutes...I have questioned many here on FR, as to the actual definition of a moral absolute, and I have yet to get a definition, just examples. As you say, many absolutes cannot be tested and have an implied 'as far as we know'. This seems especially true with the ones dealing with religion and morality. This is why I question people that seem convinced their moral and religious views, are 'absolute truths'...perhaps I've missed something, and they can provide some insight...consequently, I am still asking.
All this reinforces my thinking that these morals and religious beliefs are relative.....to the individual, or group of individuals, depending on many variables. Throughout history, it has been shown that some society, tribe, or group of individuals, has condoned things that others, in different times or places, have considered to be wrong or immoral. If there were moral absolutes, or truths, then I would expect that truth to be something self-evident, or inherent in all men, at all times. For lack of being able to present it any better, this was my analogy for the necessity of breathing...something that all men must accept.
While I believe in one, all-knowing and all-powerful God, I also do not believe there is any way to prove it, thus I follow no religion, and accept things as they are.
My, or anyone else, being right or wrong, is not relevant.
Why would you expect that? There's a whole family of religions bult around the notion that humans need to have moral law revealed precisely because its knowledge is not inherent in all men at all time.
(Can I take it that by "self-evident" and "inherent in all men" you mean something like "perceived and acknowledged by all"? I don't think that's what the founders meant when they used "self-evident", by the way.)
On the other hand, read The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, for starters. It appears that while there are always exceptions, there has been an impressive agreement about many moral issues throughout many cultures. There's considerable agreement (outside of college bull sessions) that you can't have sex with whomever you want to have sex with whenever you want, you can't just take what you want, you can only kill people with impunity under certain circumstances, and you ought to be generous.
The fact that some society tribe or group of individuals do not perceive certain moral truths might say more about their ability to perceive than about the truth of the propostion.
That George III did not agree with the notion that all men are created equal, doesn't show that it's not true or not self-evident. It merely shows that George III did not have as good a moral vision as did Thomas Jefferson. (I take "self-evident" as the Founders used it to mean something analagous to "axiom" or "postulate" in mathematics -- a starting point for argument, not something concluded by argument)
I want to parse out the question a little. Are you saying that the fact that it's hard to PROVE some proposition is a moral absolute means or suggests it's not a moral absolute?
Aristotle thought a body in motion tended to slow down (unless it was falling, that is.) Does that mean Newton's first Law is wrong or that we cannot know about the behavior of bodies in motion? (And since Newton's Laws of Motion have the place of axioms or postulates in his system, they are not "proved" except in the elegance of his system.)
The Spartans encouraged their boys to steal -- but whipped them when they were caught. To me that doesn't show that there is no moral law about stealing, it just shows that the Spartans, for all their many virtues, were brutes when it came to child rearing.
Difference of opinion about something does not show that something is true or false, knowable or unknowable, absolute or relative, it seems to me.
Thanks for the work out. The difference in the way we look at things is great.
First. I just don't see the relationship between provability and following a religion. I would venture to say that ALL (or nearly all) the important decisions we are obliged to make are made with insufficient data and knowledge. I can't prove my wife loves me. Sometimes I'm not sure I love her! But we are maried (these 29 years) and we stay married.
I can't prove I'm right when I resist the person attacking me with a club (this happened recently) and I can't prove I'm wrong to resist. I say my prayers (really quickly), make my best guess, and draw my pistol.
The question about being right or wrong was an effort to find your first principles, your axiomata or postulates. Some people say there IS no right or wrong. Others say there are right and wrong but they are unknowable. Ohers that they are knowable, but only through revelation. Others that they are knowable through careful thought. (And, no doubt, others say yet other things.)
I myself think that some matters are knowable generally (to humans who seek knowledge and who are of decent mental capacity and maturity, NOT to all humans) while other important matters are knowable only through revelation. It follows that I think some important matters are not provable in a secular sense. Consequently, to insist on secular provability is, in my view, to err and to err importantly.
For example, I think that in a polygamous marriage, husband, wives, and children are all going to have more difficulty being otherwise good and happy that they would if, to the extent possible ceteris paribus, they were in a monogamous household and/or some of the women involved were single and chaste. Whether the excellence of monogamy compared to polygamy is provable or not, the consequences will still be, um, consequent. So some decisions may matter gravely and affect innocent and otherwise uninvolved people. Standing by and waiting for iron-clad proofs MAY be a serious moral error with serious consequences.
Also, when you say you accept things as they are, again I don't see the relevance and I question the accuracy. Are you suggesting people who follow a religion do NOT accept things as they are? Is THAT provable? ;) Maybe they're the only ones who are close to perceiving things as they truly are. And again, unless you mean "I accept things as they SEEM to me," I don't understand. Who KNOWS or sees "... things as they are"? I think only God does -- not me, that's fer shur!