Post 2: All morality stems originally from a belief in God.
Post 14: All of the notions of right and wrong, good and evil trace themselves back through history to a belief in God and a greater purpose to human life than participating in the food chain.
Post 39: If you don't believe in a "Higher Power" than there is no basis to declare anything to be absolutely right or absolutely wrong.
Your assertion was certainly at the least unclear...but since you've been demonstrably proven wrong in more than one post and only now are you bringing this 'clarification' up, it's much more likely you're simply backing off a claim you can't substantiate.
You most certainly can have a RELATIVE morality. A relative morality is what the liberals call moral relativism--there are no absolutes, you need to look at the culture and the context.
No, see, here again you miss the point of what a morality is and what I'm saying. I think you really want desperately for there to be only your morality, when there are different ones. There may ultimately be only one correct one, and there are certainly absolutes in my morality, but there are many moralities out there, some of them without any absolutes. That's not relativism. I'm not saying that all moralities are of equal status or should be at all accorded that. Eichmann had a morality--warped, but his own.
You referenced my "floorism" argument--I made no such argument so perhaps you are responding to the wrong person.
Yep. Wrong poster. See post 31.
Absent the existence of a Higher Power there is no rational basis to declare something even as heinous as rape and genocide objectively wrong.
How so? If I have a rational basis to declare something as heinous as rape or genocide objectively wrong, a higher power must exist? How do you explain the Soviets signing on to the UN convention on genocide in 1954? Did the Soviets believe in a higher power?
The Taliban, the Saudi Government, the Nazis, Al Qaeda, the Soviets are among them. What is your basis, if any, for declaring the actions of these groups to be objectively and inherently wrong? ...the question remains entirely proper for the discussion at hand.
You DID say that NO ONE could have morality or ethics without a belief in a higher power, and you ignored my question earlier ("Not to take you too far off the path here, but is it impossible that one leads a life in accord with a higher power's wishes, and die, then go to heaven or nirvana, without knowing that higher power exists?"). Under THEIR moral code, their actions WEREN'T objectively or inherently wrong. Under American law, their actions were wrong--note I say nothing about American morality because there is no longer a national moral code.
But I'll demonstrate for you how a Buddhist could answer your question without appealing to a higher power: their actions were objectively wrong and inherently wrong because people should not harm other people. Buddha said so: "Let him [the householder] not destroy, or cause to be destroyed, any life at all, or sanction the acts of those who do so." He didn't say "if you want to get to see God do this," or "if you don't want me to be angry with you, since I'm God, you do this." Buddha simply said, "don't do this." And some people thought he was a wise man and followed his teachings.
My morality, and your question, has nothing to do with the fact that other people (in this case, Buddhists) may have a moral code and an ethical sense when they perform acts outside of OUR code of morality. They may know right from wrong--in the context of their ethical system. They may even have the same absolutes we do. But they do not necessarily need a higher power to have those absolutes, and to claim otherwise is simply a claim, one without any proof.