I'll have to think that over really carefully for at least a second .... Yeah, you're right, land masses are heavier.
Seriously, you know that Plato thought a moral law was more real and more absolute than a land mass -- after all, land masses keep on changing, at least around the edges ... Can you say "tsunami"? He would say that just as soon as you got to know Australia the tide would go out and some of it would be washed to sea, so it would be all different.
I mention that really only as a comment on the term "absolute".
Could you please rephrase the line:
...,there is nothing in itself that does show a moral law either.
I don't want to waste my dazzling brilliance (not to mention my great and impressive humility) on a misunderstanding.
It seems the human default positioin is that there really IS such a thing as justice. Are you suggesting that that is an unexamined notion and that there are only sort of local opinions about right or wrong?
I know it's hackneyed, but then you wouldn't REALLY have a beef if I found your agnostic position so terrible that I took a contract out on your life (Bring me my ring and my sealing wax -- Are you ready to FATWA?) -- I mean, it's just a matter of opinion either way, we can't really judge it to be wrong ... (Damn, just like an inquisitor; they're never around when you need 'em!)
You said...' That Spartans taught their sons to steal does not in itself show that there is no moral law about stealing.'...I tried to say, that there there was nothing in itself that does show a moral law, either, other than teachings. Unfortunately, I sometimes do not express myself as well as I would like.
A land mass' physical existence can be easily verified without any qualifiers, (for lack of a better term), it is a land mass, regardless of what any individual or group, may say...bottom line, it does not require an acceptance or an interpretation. Granted, a law can exist, but one can choose to obey it or not, and it can be good or bad....it can be interpreted differently by anyone, and by itself, is useless...it is the interpretation/acceptance that gives it it's value. These qualifiers, are where I make the distinction between an absolute, or a relative.
I realise that if one wants to mess around with words, semantics, grammar, whatever, you could say all sorts of things about my above, and twist my words around...but I think you know what I mean, and if not, then there is no sense in continuing this discussion.
I believe that in most people, there is a default position of justice, but in some, it appears to be lacking.
It is hackneyed, and of course I would have a beef. As we well know, there are those that are prone to murder, just as there are those that find it abhorrent. There is societal justice, and we must obey the laws that are in place, or pay the consequence...I just happen to believe that what we do here on earth, is of no consequence to God. I believe He made us as we are, good, bad, and in between.