Dark Sheep

I guess I'm ignorant or I just didn't read Atlas Shrugged very closely but how do you go about proving things like moral absolutes like how slavery is wrong or how murdering the homeless is wrong. I mean I think these things are wrong, but we live in a situation where its easy to say they are wrong. To quote Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw "Good and Evil are utterly meaningless terms that very from society to society. A few hundred years from now, when over crowding leaves us crammed shoulder to shoulder in the streets fighting over the last croissant in the patisserie, the denouncement of genocide will remembered as tragically quaint." Certainly I'd like to believe this isn't true, but without some all powerful being dictating what is evil and what is good, I myself don't see a way to refute it. Why aren't morals subjective to the person and environment? How can you have moral absolutes without believing in a god? I was just wondering what the Objectivist answer to these questions were. I'm not advocating any of these questions I'm just kind of confused.

Well the way an old English teacher of mine put it. The cave is the reality we all know, while the fire, the shadows and the chains are the materialistic things that are holding us back from the truth. As you know the story progresses and the one man escapes his chains, eventually becoming “enlightened” by reaching the surface which is heaven/God in his explanation. That was his thoughts on it though. Half the year we talked about Puritan morals and literature which along with being a total bore (to me at least) was filled with a bunch of BS about how about how everyone except God is shit and thus deserves nothing they have. Pretense for numerous social justice lectures, which also got really annoying. I mean I don’t agree with it, but that’s how the argument is at least presented. As much as I heard about Plato that year I didn’t ever think that anything he taught would mesh with those who advocated logic, though I was wrong about that.

Thanks that's what I figured.

I don't know, I guess people are just stupid and I really wish they would just see that what they are saying isn't within reason but I guess thats asking for too much from some. They are going to believe what they are going to believe I guess. That's kind of depressing to me but oh well. My only other question would be how to argue people when they bring up Plato's Allegory of the cave as a pretense to argue for the existence of a god or "higher existence". Its really stupid but I can't really argue it. If your not familiar with the Allegory of the Cave here is a link http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/ALLEGORY.HTM

I'm kind of new to how things work on forums, so bear with me if this whole thing seems a bit disjointed. Okay so I've always had trouble trying to convince people that when they say believing in a specific god or religion your not using reason or logic you are using faith. Every time though I get the same answer back about how "If we exist then something must have started it all." I always answer that with something along the lines of "Then wouldn't the next logical question be what created the thing that created us?" After that point whoever I am arguing the point with just backs up and the whole argument keeps looping. So what I'm asking is this even worth arguing? Is there anyway to further the argument for either side after that? In terms of logic I can't see any way to disprove them other then asking what created a god but after that it really just turns into a completely unanswerable question to me.