But why doesn’t Relativism in the definition of Truth have nothing to do with Relativism in ethics? Please expand.

I don’t see “The sun shines on my side of the planet but not your’s” as a relativistic. The movement of the sun is an absolute of itself. It is impossible for the sun to shine directly on 100% of the earth, an absolute.

Do I like Secular Humanism? To be honest, not really. I have studied it, as well as Cosmic Humanism and I don’t think it is possible to live consistantly with either of those two worldviews. I’d go into this more, I think we’re getting off the topic of morality, so without further ado, I return to Ethics:

No one answered my question about me stealing a relativist’s car. Could someone give me an answer?
Jacob

ps: The ultimate question of Morality is this: What if you are wrong and you die?

Bossk: Ah, you pulled out Truth (with a capital “T”). I believe there is no Truth, only a few truths. These truths must be determined in each society and by each individual, and therefore truth is constantly changing. To say truth is static would be denying history.You may call me relativist scum, but I’ll never give in to absolutism.

I don’t think you scum. You might be a relativist, but that doesn’t mean you’re scum. Anyway, If Truth changes, it isn’t Truth. Truth is an absolute. You cannot escape absolutes. If I said that all truth was subjective and that there is no absolutes, I would be creating an absolute. Call it: “The Absolute of No Absolutes,” if you will. However, an absolute that is not an absolute is illogical.

Also, if there is no objective standard for right and wrong, should you stop me from stealing your car? Stealing, may, after all, be ethical for me, but by stoping me, you would be holding me to your standard, which would imply that you think your system of ethics is supirior to mine, and that my code of morality is somehow flawed. Now, I wouldn’t consider going out and stealing anyone’s car because I think that is stealing, but how would a relativist deal with that situation and still retain his “relativism?”

Think Hard Think Well

Jacob

ps: El Jefe, what do you mean when you say murder?

What about the philosophy of evolution? Isn’t the main idea of Natural Selection about things progressing from chaos to order, an upward climb, if you will? Now, if this is so, than it is inconsistant with reality. In reality, things are going from ORder to chaos, an downward motion. For example, the sun is slowly burning out, the earth’s rotation is slowing (hence leap-year), the moon is about 1" farther from the earth ever year, etc. So, it seems to me that the philosophy of Natural Selection is not compatible with the real world.

Now I have a question for the atheist evolutionists: if there is no supernatural, and only the natural order exists, then everything is a product of chance, chaos, and chemical reactions. Indeed, to be an athiest, one must believe that there is no mind due to the fact that science has yet to locate “the mind” or “thoughts” in the brain. So, if all of our actions are the result of envirometal stimuli, then how can there be such a thing as Natural Selection?

Jacob

ps: if everthing is evolving, than how can there be such a thing as Truth? Truth cannot change, yet if evolution is true, it isn’t. If everything changes, then evolution cannot be true, because that would be an absolute, which contradicts the very nature of evolution, which is constant change.

I think there is an universal system of morals. If you look at the many different cultures you will find many different things in comon. For example, Murder a person is always wrong. But this isn’t really the issue. The issue is “what is a person?” I wouldn’t be surprised if Hitler thought it was wrong to murder someone. However, his definition of a person, a human, was different. He ordered the Holocost because he didn’t think that Jews were people. According to Hitler’s worldview, Jews were sub-human, animals, and therefore, could be killed with a clean conscience. Cultures may vary on how many wives a man can have, but you couldn’t just go out and have any woman you wanted. In other instances, the rules would only apply to that paticular group or tribe, but other tribes or people groups were outside of whatever system of ethics they held, and so a man could go raiding and come back with two or three women. But that didn’t change the fact that in his society, and probably in the women’s society, you couldn’t just go out at take any woman you wanted.

Anyway, I would be interested in hearing those of you who do not think there is a universal code of ethics to answer two questions:
(1) What is Truth?
(2) Does Truth ever change?
I’ve read through all of the past postings and this is a really great discussion.

Jacob

I have “Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far.” It’s ok, I guess. It’s a lot more realistic than other real-time stratagy games such as Command & Conquer, WarCraft, Total Annilation, etc. There such a thing as “line of sight” and “line of fire” at least in “A Bridge Too Far.” All in all, I thought it was an ok game. I don’t think I’ll ever go out and buy the other two games, though. Enjoy!

Jacob

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation is one of my favorite turn-based strategy computer games. I’m definitly no Trekky but I really got into this game. It’s a galaxy-wide map where you duke it out as one of five major Star Trek empires: The United Federation of Planets, The Klingon Empire, The Cardassian Union, The Ferengi Alliance and The Romulan Star Empire (my personal favorite). Each of these five races has it’s own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Romulans and Cardassians both have buff intel forces that can destory structures and even steal enemy ships. The Federation, however, is pathetically weak when it comes to Intel, but the’re strength is in technology research. The diplomacy is a little weak and as your empire gets bigger and bigger, anyone who doesn’t like to micromanage every star system might get frusterated. I’ve been playing this game for the last 3 years and I think it might have been a year or so old back then, so the graphics aren’t going to be anything special by today’s standards, but the Space Combat graphics are better than Masters of Orion II. Star Trek: Birth of the Federation was made by Microprose.

Has anyone played Masters of Orion III yet?

I suppose it’s possbile that they play blind, but it sounded like you could shift alliances and such, which would mean you would have to have an extra board for every player, and I think they only used two.

Here’s a question I have for the Enlightened Ones (i’ll let you all decided who that is….)(lol). Anyway, let’s say that Germany brings it’s Med Battleship and transport (w/troops from italy) and do an amphib assault on Syria, while the Afrika Korps invades Egypt from Libya. For the sake of argument, the British submarine is still in the sea zone, so there’s a naval engagment. According to the reference chart’s Naval combat sequence list, surviving submarines may withdrawl after all casualties are removed from that round of (dice) rolls. So let’s say that the Brit submarine survives and withdrawls through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea Zone. Germany proceeds with amphib assault, and the attack on Egyp, taking both, meaning Britan no longer controls the Suez. Now, I remember reading in the rules book that a ship cannot use the Suez unless both Egypt and Israel are owned by friendlies. If the invasions of Egypt and Syria are occuring at the same time as the naval battle with the sub and there is a possibilty that the brits could loose the Suez, can the Sub still escape through the Suez?

A coworker of mine mentioned that he plays a different kind of game with the Axis & Allies board and pieces. He called it “Halo” (no, he wasn’t talking about the xBox game…) :-D and I think he said they use two classic A&A boards together. I was just wondering if anyone has heard of this?

Jacob

I was attempting to create my own game and I took a dowl to a chopsaw and then printed off some “army” pictures from a clip-art library on my pc. I glued the pictures to the small dowl pieces. I had a few extra dowls so I through them in with my A&A board game and now I’ve got a few “destroyers” and “Marines” for my paper edition of A&A.

Jacob