Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 05, 2015
Transcript:
Hobbes: "How are you doing on your New Year's resolutions?" Calvin: "I didn't make any" Calvin: "See. In order to improve oneself, one must have some idea of what's "good." That implies certain values" Calvin: "But as we all know, values are relative. Every system of belief is equally valid and we need to tolerate diversity. Virtue isn't "better" than vice. It's just different" Hobbes: "I don't know if I an tolerate that much tolerance" Calvin: "I refuse to be victimized by notions of virtuous behavior"
Having been a fundamental Baptist and now an atheist, I have to disagree, lacking an invisible man in the sky (or some other version of an omnipotent being setting standards of morality), there can be NO absolutes regarding good and bad, only one person’s, community’s, nation’s, or culture’s opinion. The Aztecs didn’t even consider cannibalism bad, the Mayans practiced child sacrifice. By what standard are you going to judge either “bad” without some eternal lawgiver saying so? It’s just your culture and upbringing saying so, so how can you say you are right and they were wrong? I went atheist after trying to prove God’s existence logically and ended up proving to myself that God (at least our Western version) could not possibly exist, but I am still of the opinion that without a God, morality is a compass without a magnetic north, it just points where you think it should.