So MY view of good and evil aren't really relative, at least I don't think they are. I don't make allowances for other cultures: Arabs performing infibulations on 6 year old girls are doing wrong, IMNSHO, because they are doing something that is detrimental to human health. Any culture that forbids free inquiry into the nature of life is limiting the freedom to think, which is detrimental to human progress. We can see that simply by looking over at the Middle East and seeing how backward and sick they are. So there's nothing relativist in my views from what I can see. My main object is always human progress.
I simply don't tack on that final Official Seal of Approval that says "I want what God thinks is best for humans." No. I want what I think is best for humans. It may not jibe with what you think but it isn't relativist.
Moreoever, the God clause does not provide an objective starting point, otherwise there would be only one religion, not dozens of permutations all with differing emphases.
I still don't know if I'm answering your question or not. But do you see why I say evil is a human construct? We apply good and evil to things that are beneficial or harmful to us. Evil is that which is harmful to us. We don't judge non-humans in terms of good and evil, though. As I said in a previous post to JMJ, if a lion kills and eats a gazelle, is the lion "evil"? To us, generally speaking, he is not "evil" because animals aren't subject to these judgments. It's a little like that "if a tree falls in the forest" thing. Evil is the assessment of the action. If there is no one there who assesses things in that manner, there is no one there to say "that is evil." So there is no one on the savannah pointing at the lion and saying "evil." No one I know expects that lions will go to hell.
I guess the religious person's view is that there is a god somewhere doing this assessing. I don't think there is any such thing, therefore the direction the judgment is coming from is different. That doesn't make it "relative."
Thanks for your reply. I'd like to roll it around in my head for a while before I get back to you on it.
sitetest
Okay. My first question has to do with the source of what you view as "good" and "evil". It ultimately derives from:
"...but because I'm human and I want what's best for me."
So, is this sort of a Golden Rule - "Do unto others..." - derived from the desire to establish a society based on mutual reciprocity?
sitetest