Yeah me to............

alleluia sister alleluia.....I was brought up a baptist in england and even the fervent followers in my chapel gave me the creeps..children sinned if they ate sweets on a Sunday one of our elders informed me..they never did baptise me, i was never really ready for the dunking.

I too have become disillusioned at times. And yes, I often thought about Christ turning over the money changers tables in the temple. But, I've come to realize that I am not qualified to pass judgement on anyone in particular. I say that knowing that I make judgements all the time. On people and things. Hard habit to break. And quite often, more than less, my judgement is wrong or incomplete. Others point that out to me all the time. So, my overall opinion of televangelists is the same as yours but, I have to contradict myself by saying that they are not all cut from the same cloth. There are some decent folks doing good work out there.

Its good to have skeptics. Very important part of the balance of things, seems to me.

If only we humans could get beyond the distortions of the truth by our fellow humans and find a road uncluttered by human perception of what is right or wrong.

Would we then be able to formulate and live by reasonable moral absolutes and trust each other as we all should?

"Bring me peace on Earth"

Jesus stood silent in front of Pontious Pilot who asked him, "What is truth"?

He did not realise the answer was the man who refused to respond to his question

Now Pilot has to wash his hands forever in hell, Dantes Inferno

Alan...It is a mistake to look for moral absolutes... Don't let people snare you with moral hypotheticals... Would you torture to save a million lives??? Have you not just justified torture.... The question is framed wrongly...Would you torture to save a million lives if at the same moment you were to feel all you inflict, and die for the crime, and all without certainty that the one you tortured had information you could use...
Everyone already knows what is right, and to expect to address one injustice with another is a losing game...

Those who equivocate, and those who justify what people know is clearly wrong -not by argument, but because they can feel the pain of the injured, if they are human, and if they have not become demoralized and numb to injustice; those people who by choice injure the body human are no person's friend, whether working for government, or wearing white and sporting a cross, those people are not human...

Some people cannot feel... Some people have no sympathy or empathy... They are not put into position where they injure, but seek out such positions...There are naturally only two types of people, but only one kind of human being...All the rest are animals, and whether that is by choice or circumstance is a pointless question to me, because I know of no way to bring them into the family of man...And Here I justify no more than self protection...I would not abuse an animal, not even one in human form...

Fido

I think you are right we simply cant live by absolutes because everything is relative and subjective.

Do you think our intrinsic innate conscience is a good guide , for instance does a head hunter know killing a member of another tribe and shrinking his head is moral ?

Sorry guys somehow this thread got posted in two places most likely by me sorry, but use this one please

Killing the enemy of your people when he would do the same to you and yours is the most moral morality...It is the greatest mistake of philosophy to think you could ever teach morality... You can understand it objectively...You can teach ethics...You cannot teach people to be ethical...If you want people to behave ethically you must give them the ability, and the situation where ethics is natural...Plato and Socrates were seeing their community breaking down under the influence of easy wealth and even helping in that process, and then they wanted to teach ethics and have people behave ethically when it was no longer natural, that is, springing from natal/navel relationships, like the family...It is in relation to family, the germ of community where people learn ethical behavior... Community is morality...There never was a divided society that was ethical...

Something like two tribes praying to the same God to get victory of the other for the same limited food source that is only sufficient to sustain one tribe

Do humans ever come together in this type of scenario and share the resources between them, I don't think so?

We are animals striving to be perfect but failing dismally..

I would say Xris, that we are perfectly imperfect. Its good to fail now and again. That is how we learn and adapt. Get knocked down on the old buttski and get up over and over again. The key is, to get up, and try again.