The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #21447   Message #230598
Posted By: GUEST,Mrr
19-May-00 - 01:12 PM
Thread Name: Godless 'hymns' or Atheism Church Music?
Subject: RE: BS: Godless 'hymns' or Atheism Church Music?
David, I learned the term Ignostic in college, but I doubt it's made it into a dictionary. Unfortunately!

About good and evil - or the broader question of Can you have ethics/morals if you have no god(s) - I have never understood the link. And that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish, e.g., is there absolute good or evil. Arthur Clarke's thing about it being relative is sensible - where I grew up in West Africa, thievery was a much worse crime/sin than murder, for example. So what is considered good BY CONSENSUS becomes what IS good. Thus in Abengourou (an upcountry village in Côte d'Ivoire), stealing is unforgivable. In Abingdon, Virginia, murder is unforgivable. As the village becomes global, either both of those will become "evil" or neither - and with the influence of the industrialized world, the chances are that it will be both, not neither- so then we all, on Terra, consider both theft and murder to be crimes. Where's the sin in that?