Okay. I am perfectly aware at this time that I am debating myself, but this is such a provocative topic that I can't sleep for thinking so much. So here I am, again.
I was vacuuming my car the other night while listening to Fox News *gasp* (on wireless headphones) as I love to/can't help but think while vacuuming. They had a hippy drug user/pusher turned Evangelical Christian Pastor on the show. He was trying to explain why he thought Christianity was the one true path to God above all others. He said it was just the truth, like 2+2=4, it never equals five or six. He said it was above his paygrade to explain why it was - he just accepted it as so as a believer.
Of course, I am not a believer. My mind needs more proof. So I thought to myself in very simple mathematical theory, why is he assuming the answer is "4". Then I thought, well if the answer is "4", then "4" can be acquired by many different variables. As a matter of fact, by an infinite number of variables factored in an infinite number of ways. But more pointedly, is religion supposed to be the answer (or in this thread morality) or is it supposed to be the means of getting you to the answer? I submit that religion or morality are means to layout your variables to the equation to get humanity to the answer. Why is a plus a plus? Or a negative a negative? I don't know, but it just is and that's the fact.
We could all begin listing what we think constitutes a particular factor in this theoretical equation, and I think this is where people's views of relativism come in - but the factors themselves are absolute and unchangeable by our mere perceptions - we were either right or we were wrong.
As such, we as mere individuals can not know the absolute answer, yet still understand there is one. And we can not be sure of how a factor comes to be derived, but that it is - is still absolute. I think it was Descartes who said "I think therefore I am" which then lead him to believe that there was a God because we as humans could conceive of one. When I studied him, I thought he was mental lightweight. Now I get it.
And as I mentioned in my posts in the terror thread, the best, most direct way to get to the answer is to not allow subtractions (to keep my math theme going.) - to allow opportunities for the greatest opportunity for good by the greatest number of people or something like that is what I said.
But subtractions happen all the time and are a part of life...and math. So I say if we see someone who is always minusing (hmmm...menacing?) then we subtract their ass out of the equation!
Oh yeah, and to reiterate - there are absolutes which do not have to be explained precisely to exist. It is enough to know that they exist. And before you go calculating someone else's equation, you better be sure you understand your own!