No such thing as negative

[GUNWOUNDS]

How so? How can these values exist without us?

this is where God would come in ... he exists without us... and he is considered a moral absolute...i know you are an atheist perhaps that is why you feel morals are subjective and imaginary but

[Dante]

"this is where God would come in ... he exists without us... and he is considered a moral absolute...i know you are an atheist perhaps that is why you feel morals are subjective and imaginary but  when someone believes in a God who is the moral absolute it makes more sense that morals are real and objective.  Honestly if someone believes in God it is hard to believe otherwise. So when you said there isnt a right or wrong answer to this discussion....thats not entirely true... cause when we are dead we will know which one of us was correct.  :P But thats an entirely different discussion."

No, it's not. And yes, if there was a God then there would be a moral standard. Of course it would still be a flawed standard but it would be a standard, I grant you that... Since there is no god then the argument becomes subjective.

"But we dont even have to use God ..... lets imagine all people on earth are wiped out.... you said mathematics still stands right?  But there is no one to work the equations or the sums.  Same for morality...  if everyone was wiped out... there would be no people to choose between right and wrong but morality would still exist."

Animals use mathematics. Catch one rabbit, catch another rabbit; net result: two rabbits. But this is beside the point, even if there was no life to observe it at all one rock + another rock will always = two rocks. There is no way ever that one rock + one rock can = eight rocks. But without humans there is no 'good' or 'evil' because they are illusions (come to that there's no 'good' or 'evil' with humans but people tend to think there are). Morality was invented by humans and it will die with humans. Mathematics was around long before us, we just put it on paper.

"However if there happened to be a small set of peope who were in stasis pods and were released and started a civilization of course mathematics would still exist and they would work sums just like they did before and they would also recognize morality otherwise they would re-initiate the chaos that destroyed humanity in the first place."

Not necessarily. You're assuming that these people would think and act in a similar way to the majority of society today. And also that humanity was destroyed by something chaotic. Mathematics will apply in the same way no matter what society it is in. Morality is subjective, it won't.

"Well i can imagine writing  1+1 = 5 but that doesnt make it so."

That's because mathematics is analytic. I can imagine 'murder = good' and though that is not an accepted rule now it could easily become one without damaging society to any extreme.

"You said chaos would spawn if such a complete reversal of morality were to happen and you hit the nail on the head !!  You see were are all talking about functioning civilizations.  As soon as a civilization tried to adopt a complete reversal of morals it would be utter chaos and the civilization would cease to exist only to be replaced with anarchy and chaos.....  Same for mathematics..... as soon as you plug in the wrong variable in your equation the whole thing breaks down and you get an incorrect sum."

I did not say that such a society would be chaotic, I said that was the image that first comes to my mind. It is not necessarily correct and I can think of several reasons why not.

Again, there is a difference between mathematics and morality. The former is analytic and will either apply the way it does now or not at all. The latter is synthetic and can apply in any way, many of which are completely contradictory. A complete reversal of morals would not automatically lead to chaos, that is just what you think it should because we have not experienced it.