Thanks HDW. I think a lot of young men keep their attachment feelings secret out of fear of being "unmanly" or whatever, that they should be expected to use & toss aside or else they are a loser. It is a shame. I have two sons and wish one day for my husband to speak with them frankly on the subject (both fortunately still in diapers, no worries yet!!!)

My take is that it is not for us to DEFINE right and wrong; it is up to us to REASON about right and wrong in order to DISCOVER it. i.e., to discover correct principles and to discover how to correctly apply them in each situation.

But you already answered this when you said morality is in the eyes of the beholder. If that is true, then you have no basis to single out universal moral law for rejection. Do you see how that is logically inconsistent?

Using your logic, we owe Hitler an apology for condemning his mass murders. Have you really thought this through? Do you validate the mass murder of Jews because it was the "view" of the nazis? Do validate plantation slavery also?

The issue I have with this logic is that there is a difference between murder and premarital sex, and the difference is, one clearly harms someone and the other does not. In the case of murder, someone's rights are obviously violated. They likely didn't give their consent to be killed, so this act was committed against them in violation of their own free will.

In the case of premarital sex, there is no "victim" if both parties are consenting adults and agree to engage in a sexual relationship. Who is being harmed in this case?

There is also an obvious difference between premarital sex between two consenting adults and adultery. Adultery has a victim - the betrayed spouse. The BS is harmed by the actions of the adultery partners and therefore, the actions of the people committing adultery are immoral, since they clearly cause harm to another individual who did not give their consent.

Morality in certain situations - such as murder and adultery - is fairly universal, since someone else is clearly being harmed by the actions of another. However, premarital sex has no victim, as long as both partners agree to enter into a sexual relationship. Some issues - such as premarital sex - are neither inherently moral or immoral. Since they do not victimize anyone or harm anyone - they are simply a matter of personal choice.

As a comparison, the religion I used to belong to believed it was immoral to drink coffee or tea. Most people wouldn't have an issue with these substances, but it was very much against the teachings of the church. I don't think anyone would suggest that a person who wasn't a member of the church would have to follow the rules of this particular church, just because its members deemed such practices as "immoral."

The same could be said of premarital sex. If the objection is that it is "immoral" because it violates a specific religion (most of Christianity), that would only hold true if one were actually a Christian. I am not Christian. I am agnostic, and expecting me to follow the tenants of a religion I do not believe in makes no more sense than asking everyone to abstain from drinking coffee and tea just because a specific church has declared it immoral.

Now, there have been some good arguments made for abstaining from premarital sex that do not have to do with morality, and I can accept those. If I were single and dating, I would definitely seriously consider the effect that entering into a premarital sexual relationship could potentially have on myself and my partner, but that would have little to do with Christian morality, since I am not a Christian.

You are not using my logic, but AGG's logic. I agree there is a huge difference between premarital sex and murder, and have never said otherwise. However, that is the principle proposed by AGG.

Using his logic, Hitler was wrongly accused. A principle is only a principle if it is universally true. Otherwise it is not a principle at all.

I have no idea why you quoted my post if your argument is with AGG. His philosophy is that there is no such thing as universal principles, therefore murder is acceptable as long as some cultures condone it.


But here you are asserting an arbitrary universal standard of your own making, the very thing you are arguing against. You are saying that anything is ok UNLESS it harms someone or that anything is moral and good as long as there are "consenting adults" [anyone could argue that premarital sex is harmful when taking into account the thousands of unplanned pregnancies, STDs, etc - many lives are ruined every day via premarital sex] Nor does being a "consenting adult" negate a destructive act. Adults "consent" to have open marriages, kill people, and all manner of evil things, doesn't mean it is moral. Adults "consent" to smoke cigarettes, doesn't mean it isn't harmful.

So, your logic that only things that are "harmful" [clearly so subjective that it is meaningless] or done without "consent" is not anymore legitimate than someone else's moral standard against pre-marital sex. If yours is legitimate, then so is theirs.

That being said, I am not here to argue about premarital sex,[which I don't really care about] just about the concept of moral absolutes, which AGG rejects.

Your example of tea drinking is not a "moral," but a matter of personal taste and preference in that church. Obviously drinking tea is not a moral issue.

I want to add that one does not have to be a "Christian" to have morals. Morality is NOT exclusive to Christians. I know agnostics and athiests who are very moral people, so it is insulting to imply that ONLY Christians can be moral.

Sorry, I must have missed that.

I would have to disagree with this. Being a former member of the LDS church, I can assure you that it definitely is a moral issue. It is part of The Word of Wisdom, one of the basic tenets of the LDS church. It goes far beyond a mere matter of personal taste or preference. It would be just as important to members of the LDS church to abstain from these things as it would be to abstain from premarital sex. Of course, they aren't the same, but they are both very important beliefs of the church.

Again, it is not a moral, it is a matter of preference. Unless it is applicable universally to EVERYONE, it is not a moral. Otherwise, you relegate morality to something no more significant than color preference. Just because someone believes something is moral, does not make it so.

That is a very dangerous premise you are floating here when you examine it closely. You are saying that just because an entity [church, cult, person] says something is right, it must be right.

Lets apply that same logic to the issue of murder or rape. What if your church declared that murder and rape are moral acts? Would that make it right?

Do you see the dangerous ground you tread when you follow that line reasoning? You can avoid that trap if you remember this basic concept: all morals are universal or they are not morals. If something is wrong, it is wrong everywhere. If it is right, it is right everywhere, regardless of whether it is acknowledged or not. Just because someone doesn't recognize morality, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

My question would be, what exactly makes premarital sex immoral then? It doesn't seem to be something that is universally considered immoral. Certainly, it is considered immoral by Christian religions, but that hardly makes it universal, since Christianity isn't the only religion in the world.

So, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is this: is abstinence before marriage a universally held truth or is it merely something that certain religions believe in (such as my tea/coffee example above)?

Of course, as far as the OP goes, this is probably irrelevant. If someone doesn't believe in premarital sex, for whatever reasons, and the OP appears not to, then they should never feel pressured for any reason to engage in it.

When I say "universal" I don't mean universally ACCEPTED, but universally absolute. For example, murder is immoral regardless of its acceptance across the universe. Many communist and socialist countries, for example, practice murder as a means to control their populace.

So the idea that murder is immoral is not accepted or practiced there. Does that mean that murder is NOT a moral absolute and they are therefore, justified? Of course not. Just because a culture/entity/person does not recognize a moral value does not mean it does not exist.

That is the point I am trying to make. I am not interested enough to discuss the morality of pre-marital sex. [honestly, I don't care] My argument is against the moral relativism promoted by AGoodGuy.

Got it.

I do indeed agree that there are moral absolutes, including murder, which has been previously mentioned. It seems difficult to argue against that, though apparently there are people in the world who do so.

Very well stated, ML! Thanks again for all your input on this topic.

Wow, all these posts and not one attempt to answer the simple question � WHOSE morality is that �absolute, universal� morality?

Is it the one that believes in capital punishment, or thinks that it�s barbaric? Capital punishment for children? For adults with an IQ of a child?

Is it the one that says it�s OK to hunt gorillas? Or deer? Or that it�s not OK to murder any animals? Or fish? Or eat their eggs or fat?

Ah. life in the bubble of simple answers to man�s complex questions must be so� simple?

Anyways, I don�t see much point to this discussion, no one is going to change anyone�s mind.

I�ll be happy to rejoin this banter if the moral absolutists define to me the source of their absolute morality that the entire mankind subscribes to� Until then, I have more tile to do .

AGG

For the record, I am not promoting moral relativism (at least not as I have seen it defined). All I am promoting is that there is no absolute morality that is followed by the entire world, or for that matter, by any two people, to a 100% similarity.

Ask enough questions, and you will see that sooner or later, two "moral absolutists" will have a difference of opinion on what is moral and what is not.

Until someone tells me where this "abolute universal morality" is clearly spelled out, then we are left with everyone having to make their own decisions as to what is moral. And that is my point here.

AGG

Really? Is it that simple? Yay us, but bad communists and socialsts...

But wait, what about when we murder, er, execute someone? Even a retarded person? Texas must be so immoral, according to this clear cut logic...

AGG

We also consider different things to BE murder. Does it matter if the killing is consented to (assisted suicide)? Self-defence or defence of another or even property CAN be a justification for intentional killing (which means that the killing is not only excusable but the right - ie., moral - thing to do) and the parameters vary widely even among US states.

These types of arguments sound very neat and tidy until you actually start to think about them in some depth.

It makes no sense to think about moral absolutes divorced from actual social practice.

The punishment and/or remedy is another matter. We are talking about the universal principle of murder as a moral wrong.

Using your logic, we owe Hitler an apology because his culture condoned the murder of Jews.

Actually, you are promoting moral relativism. The notion that we all get to make up our own morals [and they are legitimate,, no matter what] is exactly that. Just because someone does not follow a moral absolute does not mean that moral is negated. For example, people break our laws about murder every day. Does it mean that murder is a moral act? Of course not. Murder is immoral every place, no matter what.

If murder was not a universal moral absolute, then there would be NO debate at all about the above situations. That is a common mistake that many moral relativists make because they don't think things through.

Difficult situations don't negate the basic principle, they VALIDATE it. Do you see that? If murder was not a moral absolute, then who cares if someone kills in self defense or kills themselves? It would make no difference.

Your examples only confirm what I said, that morals are absolute. The reaction of a given society to said crime does not negate that truth.

While people might get morality wrong in complicated situations, they don't get the basics wrong. Your examples prove that. Hilter knew it and that is why he had to dehumanize Jews.