Quote:
Originally Posted by bhunter
I'll join the Chas-Finn group.
IMHO, good and evil have no empirical basis and are only relative to human beliefs. Of course, what we believe to be good or evil changes over time.
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It's an odd one. If a cat takes its time killing a mouse before losing interest and dispatching it, it's behaving normally. If a human were to behave this way in today's society it would be thought of as abnormal, psychotic, yet history is littered with examples of different human cultures where in some instances, part of the death penalty was to make it last as long as possible.
We're the focus of our own beliefs and as this focal point moves, our sense of right and wrong moves with it. Are extreme Christian believers doing a kindness when they try to beat the devil out of a child, or are they acting like throwbacks to a time when being stoned to death was thought a suitable punishment for sin?
There was a great drama on BBC Television about a group of survivors in a world hit by a lethal virus. The survivors thought of themselves as civilised but when a child was abused and the abuser caught they had to choose; hold to their beliefs and let him live but under restraint? Banish him? Or put him to death. The first two had the danger of risk; one way or another he might have escaped and become a danger so they chose the third way.
In the space of a few years not a few generations, what we think of as basic principles, pillars of our beliefs, can be completely discarded.