Rationalism: a paper tiger?

It might be wise to point out that, although recent times might seem to indicate otherwise, the religious right and conservatives are separate entities. I'm not arguing that H is right, or you're wrong - just thought the distinction might be where the two of you have reached a disagreement. Maybe not, though, just chucking in a couple of cents.

If there is no absolute humour, then there is no humour whatsoever.
If there is no absolute beauty, then there is no beauty whatsoever. And if there is no humour, then there is no justification for laughing at Billy Connolley.
And if there is no beauty, then there is no justification for finding Jessica Alba attractive. Morals are just agreements people come to in order to live peacefully with one another. They are just methods for structuring and regulating human interactions with one another. Not everybody agrees with each other on what is moral and what is not, but a consensus emerges. If you want to do something that the consensus considers immoral, you may find yourself facing social consequences. Courts and legal systems are a way of regulating social consequences to avoid the human tendency for disproportionate retaliation enflamed by passion by deferring the ruling to a third party.In some systems, one person or group of people gets more say in what should be regulated and what should be considered immoral in the society. This is unfair, and democracy is the best way we have of trying to combat this tendency...it is evidently unfair to allow a unrepresentative group of people tell everyone else what is right and wrong in their social interactions. It wouldn't be right according to my morality, but other moralities have functioned with this being 'right'. Sometimes they don't function very well, and people start to rebel and demand change; that depends how much of an iron fist the group in question can maintain and for how long. I'd say brainwashing or indoctrination was immoral, yes.

No. What I was saying is that if a subjective thing exists, it exists even if there exists no absolute variant thereof. There is no absolute humour, yet humour exists. He doesn't intrinsically know it was abhorrent. If the person who was killed and is a criminal - the kid might not think it is abhorrent. If they are any member of outgroup it is conceivable that lad doesn't have a problem with it.If he does have a problem with it, it's because he came to that conclusion either through a reasoned argument or more commonly because of the community standards. We innately try and avoid doing wrong things and try and do right things. That's just a consequence of being a highly social ape. Not all people have this same sense, but in general it is the common tactic, with a few 'cheaters' in the mix.Where do we get what is a wrong thing and a right thing? That depends on the social environment we find ourselves in. If you have grown up to know that killing a disabled child is the way your society deals with disabilities, you may well agree that doing it is right and letting the child grow to adulthood is wrong. Normally, it's a free market of ideas - but there are usually at least few people that try and actively restructure the current culture. The freer the culture, the more people can take part in this. Otherwise, it is structured passively - people largely take the lessons they learned from adults they grew up with with some personal modifications here and there. Unfair as in unequal as in - all views don't have equal voice. Fairness can be an absolute concept, and it was how I was applying it.