Moral Relativism

I'm of the opinion that there is a very basic standard of morality (that exists apart from ourselves) that doesn't necessarily change. Cultures change. And as cultures change, the way they conform (or don't conform) to morality changes. If one culture thousands of years ago sees murder and rape as socially acceptable, that doesn't mean they don't have an underlying sense that murder and rape are wrong. They just choose to ignore it and make up their morality standards. If you're going to say there are no moral absolutes, you can't base your argument on the behavior of past cultures. Most people choose to make up their own standards of morality, so yes, to them, morality is relative. Yet, just because you ignore a moral absolute (such as rape is wrong), doesn't mean it disappears. If moral absolutes exist, they exist beyond and apart from ourselves. By definition, we can't change them even if we tried. We can only change our behavior and response to them. And the more we ignore them, the more callous we become to them.

Let's face it: eventually, a discussion like this will become the familiar EE Christian/Atheist/Agnostic debate, and a lot of people (myself included) are kind of burnt out on that.