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Originally Posted by mr dave
my bad but you obviously got what i was saying. again though, how do you define the 'correct' answer?
why can't everything be nothing? how do you define existence?
i think the idea that one side has to be wrong so the other is right is one of the major failings of humans.
the easiest analogy i can think of is war. every single person who willingly fought in any war has always been on the same side - the one they believed was right. yet one side always goes down in the history books as having been 'wrong'. were they really wrong or is it just the easiest way of justifying the actions of the victor and their violently enforced view of what is 'right' into the collective psyche of the species?
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Interpretations of history are undeniably biased, but there are so many factors to take into account with war though; I mean Nazi Germany thought they were right - rampant patriotism and skewed philosophies gone postal rising from the ashes of a crippling economic depression etc etc...
But I think you can draw the moral line at a fundamental, instinctive level, the few wrongs and rights that were recorded common to all the ancient religions - thou shalt not kill and so forth.
To illustrate - it wasn't until the end of the war, I think I'm correct in saying, that the general public in Germany became aware of the mass genocide that had been occurring in the death camps. They were kept in the dark to avoid dissent. Unclouded by religion or politics or any ulterior motive, human death is not open to interpretation; so I think you
can define what is right and what is wrong to a certain point. We exist or we do not exist.
As for defining existence surely it has always been self awareness, consciousness?
Also I think what Unfan says about religions that claim to have all the answers is a very good point. That's the danger. Trust yourself.
EDIT: Philosophy and Ethics was low on my agenda in college, Unfan has the terminology down, ignore my muddlings.