Religions too, would insist that there are absolute ethics,
the Ten Commandments for example. The Ten Commandments can
be disposed of easily as an example of hypocrisy when one
examines the actions of cultures claiming to follow them.
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You mean the Ten Suggestions.
Their are a couple of ways of reading that.
Thou shalt not kill, for example, may not mean that once you've killed
you are no longer "seen" in god's eyes. It says that to kill is affront
to God. If you kill, expect a punishment.
Karma says the same thing.
The religious (I hope) read these "rules" in a manner that promotes
their own moral responsibility, not to be guided like children who have
no choice but to obey.
The sacriment of confession in the Catholic church is similar.
There have been abuses (the church selling indulgences etc.) and many
criticisms by protestants and non-christians. But the essence of the
ritual is to promote reflection on your deeds and devolop your ethical
judgement-- to take responsibility.
I agree with you. When it comes to ethics, the thruth has to be
relative.
It's your own personal journey. Otherwise, surely by now, we would be
able to go to the library and sign out the operator's manual to life.
Perhaps, as long as reproduction is a fundamental element of the
universe, we will constantly be rewriting our memes and our ways of
living.
The only way to escape this-- to attain absolute truth, it to step out
side of Time-- where reproduction is no longer necessary in order to
ensure to lifespan of genes/memes.
It is there, that point outside of time where all kinds of thought takes
shape. Angels live there, God lives there, the Watcher, from the Marvel
Comics title "What If?" lives there, the Highlander lives there, as do
Anne Rice's Vampires.
As long as we're reproducing we're going to be constructing the opposite
of reproducing--
Is there an opposite in the religion of Homo Deus?
-- Regards +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ Ken Pantheists http://www.lucifer.com/~kenpan Virus Theatre http://www.lucifer.com/virus/theatre TooBa Physical Theatre Centre http://www.tooba.com +--------------------------------------------------------------------+