You're asking why opinions on food aren't condemned but certain acts are condemned?

I'm not sure, actually... I feel like they can't be connected that way because your opinion about whether or not a cookie is good doesn't negatively effect the life(lives) of other people the way killing someone might... but again, I'm not totally sure... but I'd love to hear your answer.

A murder half-way around the world doesn't really affect my life positively or negatively. It affects my life about as much as your opinion on ice cream. Although it doesn't affect my life, I still think it's wrong because it affects me emotionally.

The thing is that the evil society is evil according to you. But in their perspective, they are not evil. We are talking about how relative morality can be. You may think that good is good and evil is evil, but that is totally dependent on your definition of good and evil and that definition differs from culture to culture.

Ancient cultures saw human sacrifice and cannibalism as a normal if not holy thing to do, while other cultures that existed at the same time saw those practices as horrifying and diabolical. Who was right? According to each, they considered themselves right, but each other wrong: making the morality of those practices completely relative.

but someone's opinion on ice cream doesn't (or at least it shouldn't).

But it does not follow that because the people in a society do not believe that their society is evil, that their society is not evil. Why should it? A person may not believe that lots of sugar is not good for him, but it does not follow that lot's of sugar is (in fact) not good for him. Nothing about whether something is true follow from whether it is believed true. I suppose that many people in Nazi Germany did not believe that their society was evil. But, so what?

Whether morality is, in fact relative is an issue that is independent of whether there are, in fact, different beliefs in different societies. We should distinguish between cultural relativity and moral relativity. Cultural relativity is just an anthropological fact. It is a fact that in different societies moral beliefs differ. But moral relativity is the view that what a particular society believes is right is, in fact, right in that society. But moral relativity is a moral view, not an anthropological view. And moral relativity does not follow from cultural relativity. Do you see the difference?

---------- Post added 04-20-2010 at 11:26 AM ----------



Is that a moral judgment? That it shouldn't. In Jonathan Swift's, Gulliver's Travels, two countries are constantly at war with each other because one of the countries believes that soft-boiled eggs ought to be opened on the small end of the egg. The other country believed they should be opened on the large side of the egg.

Again, you're right! haha even when I think I'm agreeing with you, you still find ways to call me out and make me think more about what I am saying. I appreciate that, really.

The thing is that the evil society is evil according to you. But in their perspective, they are not evil. We are talking about how relative morality can be. You may think that good is good and evil is evil, but that is totally dependent on your definition of good and evil and that definition differs from culture to culture.

Ancient cultures saw human sacrifice and cannibalism as a normal if not holy thing to do, while other cultures that existed at the same time saw those practices as horrifying and diabolical. Who was right? According to each, they considered themselves right, but each other wrong: making the morality of those practices completely relative.

Isn't that the idea of this forum?

that was in ancient time where their morality is based on their religion.
that is not human morality it is more likely a religious morality

we don't need religious morality, we are not religion, we are humans, all we need to know is the morality of humans, we don't need to know what is good and bad for religion but for ourselves.

My question to you is: where else do we get our original foundation of morality, if it's not religion? I, myself, am not religious now, but I was raised that way and so my ideas of what is right and what is wrong were taught to me through religion. That's just me personally, though.

Where do you get your perspective on what is right and what is wrong? I'd like to know so that I could try and see it from your point of view.

it begins with understanding and by understanding it we believe it, as we believe it we follow it and it became a religion, but something is mistaken, that religion wrongfully understand and was corrected in which became the modern morality.

Humanism

I'm not sure I understand this completely... Can you explain it again, maybe a little differently?

I need to read more about Humanism. It sounds interesting. Any recommended books or articles? Thanks!

during the stone age, humans begin to explore things instead of becoming a food hunter forever, as they explore it they learn to understand it, as they understand things they explore, they believe in it , as they believe on what they understand, they follow it and later it became a religion, but as time passes by, some human sees they made a mistakes on understanding things and they corrected it, in which became our present morality.