Absolute right and wrong

From PhiloWiki

Is there absolute right and wrong? How do we know who is truly right and who is truly wrong?

Christian views

While exposing the intolerance that passes for the virtue today, the authors make an illuminating point: "Relativism is bankrupt as a moral philosophy, and no one is actually a real relativist, including the contemporary secular liberal. Secularists today make a whole host of moral judgments, and they do so unhesitatingly," they write. "The relativism of the secular liberalism . . . is only relativist when it is resisting traditional Judeo-Christian morality." Actually, say Mr. Stetson and Mr. Conti, secularists engage in selective relativism. They invoke relativism when arguing against Christians and other cultural conservatives. But they treat their own beliefs and moral principles as objective, absolute, and universal truths.

The rock that is higher: Two books expose the intolerance of "tolerant" relativists from World Magazine  Gene Edward Veith

This is the point, too, of William Watkins in his book The New Absolutes (Bethany House, 1996). He identifies 10 core convictions that govern today's secularists:

1. Religion interferes with freedom and must be banished from the public square.
2. Human life is valuable only as long as it is wanted.
3. Marriage is a human contract made between any two people, and can be terminated for any reason.
4. Family is any grouping of two or more people.
5. Sexual intercourse is permissible regardless of marital status.
6. All forms of sexual activity are moral as long as they occur between consenting adults.
7. Women are oppressed by men and must liberate themselves.
8. People of color should receive preferential treatment.
9. Non-Western societies and other oppressed peoples and their heritage should be studied and valued above Western civilization.
10. Only viewpoints deemed politically correct should be tolerated and encouraged to prevail.

The rock that is higher: Two books expose the intolerance of "tolerant" relativists from World Magazine  Gene Edward Veith

Secular views

Various theologians of the middle Ages raised the interesting questions of whether right and wrong are whatever God decrees them to be. For example, if God commanded "Thou shalt rape thrice daily," would it have been morally right to carry out the command and wrong to disobey it? If divine decree is not only the source but the ultimate criterion of right and wrong, is there any basis for trusting the Supreme Being who concocts the meaning of right and wrong? Indeed, were this putative Being to trick his creatures by scrambling the consequences of commands and prohibitions, it would be irrational to call Him evil; He is the Cosmic Existentialist who invents right and wrong ex nihilo. If he should lie, deceive, order Joshua to slaughter the Canaanites, or command rape, He could do all this and still label Himself as perfectly good.

The Relativity of Bible Ethics from Biblical v. Secular Ethics: The Conflict  Joe Edward Barnhard