Relativism and pseudo tolerance

The relativist has his feet firmly planted in mid air, which is to say his view is so foundationless and out there air-headed, and yet we live in a culture today that has not been challenged enough in its post modern mindset. Relativism has run rampant in our society nowadays to the point where, I once heard about a lady who was asked “would it be ok to torture babies for fun,” and she replied, “well, I wouldn’t want that to happen to my baby.” Huh! But that wasn’t the question she was asked. The question is not about your preferences, likes and dislikes, but the action and its related moral or immoral status. I don’t LIKE being served burned food, but that doesn’t make it immoral to be served it. These moral matters we are discussing are not contingent upon what historical time period, or culture it is we live in. She then said “I think people should be allowed to decide for themselves.” Well no kidding, people should, can, and do decide for themselves, but that is still an attempt to run from the question. The question is, should that person, upon deciding to do that act, be punished or rewarded for the moral or immoral nature of the act? I think the answer is pretty clear, don’t you? Now, when someone says “don’t push your morality on me,” I gotta ask, what is motivating a statement like that? It would have to be that they think it is illegitimate to push morality. They think there is no objective universal set of moral principles that apply to all people. They think it is up to the individual. Different strokes for different folks basically. But this is like comparing ice cream and insulin though, which you can’t do. You may choose your flavor of ice cream and it’s not a moral issue when you differ in preference from the next person, but you may not preferentially treat insulin that way. To the moral relativist, a statement like “rape is wrong, or abortion is wrong” is the same thing as saying “i like butter pecan ice cream.” If I say “I like vanilla ice cream,” I am not saying that vanilla is morally better than chocolate, I am simply saying I prefer it. It would be kind of silly for someone to come up to me and say “you’re wrong about chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream,” because this is a preferential statement. People have turned moral prescriptions into personal taste descriptions. This has been the case with the abortion debate. People have said “if you don’t LIKE abortion, then don’t have one.” If I say it is wrong to kill people unjustly, I am not at all concerned with whether or not you like to kill people or not, it is whether it is right or wrong. People who object to abortion don’t do so simply because they don’t like it. It may be the case that they don’t like it, but that is not the reason they are against it. If I say “you ought not to torture people,” and you say “but I like to torture people,” I would respond that your liking it has no bearing on the matter. The fact that you like it just reveals that you are more deeply immoral than we perhaps suspected, but that doesn’t speak to the issue of the action being acceptable. When I say “homosexuality is immoral,” I am not simply saying that I don’t prefer it. It turns out that I don’t prefer it, but I am saying more than that. It may be that the thing in question I do prefer, for example, some forms of pornography are appealing to my sinful nature and are preferential to my immoral tastes. Pornography is immorally wrong objectively, just as much as homosexuality, and it matters not if I or anyone else likes or prefers the thing in question. When people say “that is your truth,” they make a huge error in thinking. First, the idea that truth is subjective as displayed in that statement, must itself also only be a subjective truth, and thus carrying no weight. And anyway, the definition of truth is that it just is, truth is fixed. Truth does not deviate from what the truth IS, or it becomes non-truth. Objectivity indicates something (some object) to be found out, not something to be made up, as with subjectivity. Subjectivity however, is up to the subject. If I say hagan daaz ice cream is delicious, it sounds like I’m talking about the ice cream (object) doesn’t it? But with that statement, I’m really talking about the subject (persons likes). Mathematical truth for instance, is not subjective. Imagine a student trying this out on his professor who teaches a relative truth position and says “my mathematics are true to me, so you need to change my grade from a 60 to 100,” or if the teacher taught relative morals, and the student cheated and said “I was just taking to heart what you said was so, and I think it is perfectly ok to “borrow answers.” When looking at truth, think about it this way: would such and such a thing be true if I were dead or did not exist? The thing would not even have to be publicly proven. For example, would a black diamond that I buried in the ground still be in the ground after I died, even though nobody else knows about it? Of course we know that the objective truth of its reality and position in the ground is still the same. Feelings and perceptions are ours subjectively, but objective truth is true apart from my believing in it or not, or whether I exist or not. I suspect that a lot of this sort of thinking is connected to our society’s overly “politically correct” standpoint and an inflated fear of stepping on someone’s toes. I explained in a previous post that “political correctness” may be political, but it is certainly not correct. It impedes communication and separates people. People end up just being surfacy (small talk) with each other, and then talk behind each others backs. It sacrifices any common moral ground so that you can gain understanding about someone and their views, because it is now taboo to discuss such matters. This view of “PC” actually perpetuates racism and parochialism. I think one motivation for relativism people have, is that people just want to get along by means of not touching on any “hot” topics, but, if you think about it, they are kidding themselves, because the relativist can’t get along with the objectivist anyway, and now they show that they are just as exclusive and “narrow” and dogmatic as the people they don’t like. It is helpful to see that you won’t and can’t get along with everyone, even within relativism. This noble motive to “get along” with everyone, concerning viewpoints is unattainable. Secondly, the relativist doesn’t realize that his noble motive presupposes a number of moral doctrines which he can’t do within his own worldview, for instance, assuming that it is good to get along with other people in the first place, and then that people should like or conform to things that are labeled “good,” as a morally objective norm to be adopted. As it turns out, the relativist accepts relativism on a non-relativist basis. Their whole grounding for embracing relativism and being tolerant is taking to objective moral norms, which they supposedly oppose. This being the case, they might as well abandon relativism. Why be a relativist is my question, when you can’t pull it off? They are going to have to bite the bullet on many moral issues if they want to maintain their professed faith. They will have to say that there really are no grounds for moral discourse on any level, because ultimately, any morally related term is meaningless. They cannot say someone is wrong, but only that such and such didn’t comport with their personal tastes. The relativists commitment to tolerance only works in my objective worldview, not theirs, and if they value tolerance so much, then they need to change worldviews. They are bound to the fate of being walking contradictions, because they don’t want to give up their worldview, and they don’t want to give up other common moral ideas we all take for granted.



Perhaps a deeper rooted reason people want to be morally relativistic in their thinking is that they want to engage in a certain lifestyle and behavior that objective morality would condemn. Promiscuous people who don’t have good moral arguments for their behavior, say to themselves “let’s just get rid of morality all together so that I can live more consistently with my beliefs and still be a nasty sinner.” They are in a bind and can find no other way to reconcile wanting to live for darkness and self, and still be associated with goodness, and so they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the end.
I also suspect that the reason some people act this way concerning not talking about life’s issues is because they have come to the conclusion (just like we were told in our nursing class) that ”you won’t change anyone’s mind.” Well, I think this is a rather pessimistic way to view the world. It’s also very inaccurate because I have helped influence and change many people’s minds on different topics. I had my mind changed a little over 6 years ago concerning Christ and the Truth. I used to be a humanist. Our clay is not as hardened as we think, or else how did they expect us to change our view on not being able to change peoples views. What’s the point in training us to fit a certain mold if it’s not going to take. Certainly they wouldn’t have pressed that idea so much if they thought we already took that for granted and accepted that notion. I suspect further that it is the people who think this way who won’t change anyone’s mind, because they are too apathetic to care and change themselves first to make a difference. They think no minds can be changed and will therefore seal that fate for themselves by having little influence. Next, I want to ask what is it that holds culture together? It’s law, right? And what is law standing on, but the necessary foundation of morality. You hear people these days say “you can’t legislate morality.” But that is faulty thinking because morality is the ONLY thing you can legislate. If you don’t have the moral justification for your use of force, or not using the powers of government for the common good, but rather use it for your own arbitrary preference and pleasure, then that’s despotism and fascism. When someone says “who are you to say,” I simply say back “who are you to question,” or “who are you to say about saying.” It goes both ways. When someone says “who are you to say,” they are not asking a question, but rather saying something more like “who died and made you boss.” But it is not as if when I make a truth claim, I am saying I am some sort of authority and saying I make the rules and you gotta listen to me. No, I am attempting to rationally discuss matters. And another thing, when people say “who are you to judge,” I just say I am perfectly qualified to judge. I am a rational adult who is aware of certain moral principles. Who else do you want to judge, cats and dogs? If humans can’t be the ones to make moral judgments, who is left? To say we can’t judge, is basically to say you don’t want to pick up the baton and be a moral agent.
Or, like people who say “you shouldn’t be judgmental.” Ok Mr. anti judgments, is that your judgment? Any ought’s, ought not’s, should’s, shouldn’ts, etc. require judgments. One tactic to expose relativists inconsistencies, is to press their “hot buttons” by challenging their moral pet peeves. They will have to surrender their pet peeve positions or surrender relativism, but they don’t want to do either. You know, someone can wax eloquent about moral relativism in an intellectual conversation, and later that afternoon complain about all sorts of injustices. Just keep your ears open for those “shoulds” and “oughts” and that will be the hot button in which to push. Concerning judging, it seems that the most quoted and known bible verse out there today is in Matthew 7:1, where it is said “judge not, least you be judged.” Mostly it is non Christians or ignorant Christians who quote it in efforts to get someone else to stop giving their assessment or voice on a particular matter. However, " Judge not, least ye be judged," in context, is speaking of a person who is living as a hypocrite. For example, if someone was living in adultery, he should not judge, (in the sense of condemning) another person doing the same exact thing. The original Greek language reveals that word to mean “a harsh condemnation.” So one person who has just committed adultery could go and advise another person not to commit adultery and tell him of the horrible consequences if he did. It’s a warning so to speak, not a condemnation. So next time a person is about to jump into a shark infested water and another dude says “Don’t jump in dude, you’re going to get ate up stupid!” Why don’t you just say “Don’t judge him, you don’t know him!” But that’s ridiculous to say the man is judging him! However, if a dude who just committed adultery yesterday and sees a guy commit it today and says “you evil man, you’re going to hell, I can’t believe you did that to your wife.” Then that guy is wrong. Do you see the difference? You know, if we cannot judge, then how could we ever say that Hitler was wrong in killing 6 million Jews? We would have no standard, no morals. God also said not to throw pearls before swine (or pigs) only 5 verses down from this judge not verse in Matthew 7:6! Which basically means don’t try to give the jewels of the life giving words of the gospel to pigs who will just trample all over them and dirty them in the mud and then attack and maybe trample the person trying to give it. Well, why would God tell us this if we were not allowed to judge. How then would we ever know who not to throw the pearls to. You’d have to judge in order to know who the piggies are. A few verses down in Matt 7:15, God says to beware of false prophets. We have to judge who is a false prophet and who is not if we are going to heed this warning. Check Luke 7:43 “and the Lord Jesus said unto him: “Thou hast rightly judged."
Luke 12:57 "Why do you not of yourselves judge what is right?"
John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
1Cor.2: 15-16 "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
Anyway, there are many other passages that show that judging is not the issue, but whether the judgment is correct or not. This is known by whether it is in line with scripture. Look, moral neutrality is a flat out myth. To say that the state is neutral on the abortion issue because it is not forcing women to have abortions, nor is it forcing them to not have abortions, is a naïve statement. The state is not neutral because when you identify why a pro-lifer is against abortion, you find that it is because they believe the fetus is a live human being, and you can then understand, on that basis, why pro-lifers want abortion outlawed. But the state permits abortion, and so isn’t the state then saying that the fetus is not a human person with membership to the human community? If the state believes that they are members of the human community like pro-lifers do, then ought they be doing something to protect these individuals? You see, the state is not neutral after all. Since they don’t protect these citizens from harms way, they are saying the fetus IS NOT a part of the human community, thus taking a position (not neutral). You see how simple this is. Just stop and think for a second and you’ll see that the state cannot be neutral, not even on the same sex issue. Saying all sexual unions are equal, is not a neutral position. That is making an assertion about the nature of human sexuality. As it turns out, nobody is a relativist because they are made in the image of God. They can’t pull it off. They can talk it, but not walk it. Faye Waddleton is a good example of the neutrality myth in action. Faye Waddleton, the former president of planned parenthood. Wrote a letter that was incredibly hypocritical. She said things like “we should trust others to think and judge for themselves,” and “fundamental respect for others is morality in the highest order,” etc. Don’t you love it when people say with such passion, things like “Don’t let the system or anyone tell you what to think.” Ok, so am I supposed to let you tell me what to think right now with that statement? Am I being oppressed because I am being a “freethinker” like you TOLD me to be? Again, we see the lack of logical analysis that people keep as companion, and we see that there is no island of moral neutrality. It doesn’t exist. If there were such an “island,” everyone would just keep their moral code to themselves, except for maybe in a biographical manner, and report what they believe to someone else. Faye W. says she wants to continue to defend the rights of all people of their own beliefs and then says those who disagree with her beliefs are “unfair, un-american and are tyranist’s.” Hello, those are all moral labels and moral judgments. If you disagree with her points on tolerance, she will not tolerate your view. Not only that, she will use the law to impose her morality on you. She said she has devoted her career to ensure her daughter inherits the legacy of her vision. She is a lobbyist who is on capitol hill, hoping to have influence on men of power to pass legislation which will force people to live according to her sense of morality. By the way, that’s fine and dandy that she wants to lobby and enforce things and all that (nothing wrong with that), but she doesn’t like it when other people do the same thing, and calls them “tyranists” simply for living like an American. You see, ALL laws force a viewpoint, that’s the nature of law. The truth is, is that moral relativism is not neutral, or even tolerant for that fact, but rather misleading and fallacious. The passive aggressive tolerance trick is a shell game. It goes like this: Let’s say i simply just make a claim about the world and then the relativist says I’m a jerk and intolerant for my view. They think they are being passive (by not taking a stance), but are on the contrary, rather aggressive and jerky and they in fact are taking a stance, the stance of relativism. They usually engage in personal attacks and name calling at some point, which slams not only the view, but the person as well (that’s intolerance). Note to readers: one should accept or reject arguments due to the content being strong or weak in argumentation, not the tone of the presenter or other variables. Some people reject a message because the messenger is a tad harsh or blunt. Don’t have a problem with a person who throws an occasional slam (ad hominem) out there, by in turn throwing one yourself and then rejecting it on the basis of it. Can you imagine if I went to my doctor and the doc said I have cancer and I said “you’re mean, I’m going to go to another doc who is nicer.” This is ridiculous. Maybe you’re mean for calling him mean, Mr. cancer patient. Name calling is weak, especially if it is not combined with a decent point or argument. I have been called a homophobe before, and I must say that it is odd to say I’m homophobic because I oppose the homosexual lifestyle, and that opposing it somehow makes me afraid of homosexuals. It may very well be that I am afraid of homosexuals (which I’m not), but it doesn’t follow that even if I were, that my arguments are invalid because of my fear. I might have very good points for my view. What if an anti-war protestor is hemo-phobic, or fearful of blood shed, would that mean that any of his arguments against warfare should be dismissed because he has a fear of blood? No, it has no bearing whatsoever. In addition to that, it is highly politically incorrect by their definition, to make fun of someone or slam on someone for having a phobia. If I suffer from a phobia, I am handicapped in a certain mental capacity, and you would then be making fun or slamming on the handicapped. Hardly “PC”!



Many people are hypocritical by saying things like “we should engage in civil discourse and be tolerant, and then say “unlike those self righteous Christians.” They decry name-calling and then engage in name calling, and most of the time get away with it. What they really mean by civility is that everyone ought to agree with them and anyone who doesn’t, needs to shut up. I heard a story of a girl who was in a class and the teacher said “you ought to be open minded to other people’s points of view, because nobody has the truth on morality and religion.” I thought her question that she asked back to the teacher was perfect. She said “if nobody has the truth on morality and religion, isn’t that a good reason not to listen to anybody? After all, the only reason I’d listen to somebody is if I could learn something from them, and I can only learn something from someone if in fact that person could have the truth. So in order to justify open mindedness, one has to in fact believe there is such a thing worth being open about in the first place.” I thought that response was perfect, and it took some guts to say that in class. A person who says you are close minded for being objective is basically saying that since you don’t agree with them, you are not open minded. Gee, that sounds pretty close minded if you ask me. Have they not considered that you may have meticulously weighed the evidence across the board for different views? And also, being open minded means that you are open to the possibility of learning the truth. But if you say there is no truth, then why waste MY time having me listen to YOUR truth. It is only by the basis of truth existing that open mindedness makes any sense at all. Epistemological relativism makes for the most close minded person you could ever encounter. I heard a story about a guy who had his kid in the public school system, and they were doing what they called “values clarification,” and they gave the scenario of a wife in desperate pain and suffering and the husband who killed his wife out of an act of mercy. The students were told that it was up to them to decide if the husband should be tried in court. The father of the boy complained to the school, and they told him “look, we are not telling them what to do, or giving them the answers, we are morally neutral and leaving it up to them, so what’s the problem.” The guy’s response was very insightful. He said “when you give my children the most difficult moral dilemma people could face and then tell them, there are no rules to guide them, there is no morality to give insight to the circumstances, but instead that it is up to them, that is NOT neutral, that is a moral point of view called relativism.” Again, I reinforce the fact that everyone must take a position. Now, when someone says I’m intolerant, I just ask them “what do you mean by that.” They usually respond that “you think you are right and have the corner on all truth, you’re right and everyone else is wrong.” I say, “yes, of course I believe I’m right. I could be wrong, but I’m not making any of this up. I have good reasons for believing what I believe. I once heard a caller on a radio show call in and rip on the host for publically correcting some theologians errors of theology. He was up in arms about the “audacity” of the host in correcting this guy on national radio, but what the heck was he doing right then and there. He was correcting the host himself on national radio. C’mon, we can do better than that in our thinking. Let’s shift gears here a bit. Now, if I say to someone else “the things that you believe contrary to me, since we disagree, are those differing things you believe right or wrong?” What do you think he’ll say, “No, everything I believe is false, please don’t listen to me.” No, of course they won’t say that. They’ll say they are right, but if they say “I am right for me,” I say “If you are only right for you, why are you talking to me? It seems very much like you’re trying to correct me. Why is it when I think I’m right, I’m labeled intolerant, but when you think you’re right, you’re just right. What am I missing here? To believe something, is to hold that it is true. If you didn’t hold it to be true, you wouldn’t believe it. You’d believe something else you thought was true. People have told me “You think you’re so smart, don’t you, you know it all!” Well, first of all, I don’t think i know it all. I realize that I lack knowledge in many areas, but what bit I do know about, of course I think I’m right, and that anyone who says contrary to what I say is wrong. We believe things because we think they are right, not because they are wrong, or only probably right. If I am only half sure of something, I let people know. E.G. I am about half sure of what is going on with all this conspiracy hoopla with our government. The propaganda spinsters have a way of making both sides look very convincing. Now, if a person can show me evidence or give reasons why I am wrong, then maybe I’ll be convinced and change my viewpoint, but until then, of course I will think I am right about everything that I contend for. If I didn’t think I knew about it, I wouldn’t contend for it, but rather listen in on the conversation and collect data. This is not arrogance or pride. People have said : “Oh, so every religion is wrong except yours, huh. Pretty bold of you.” But this is exactly what they do and everyone else. Atheists claim they are right and as a result, if they are right and anyone disagrees with them, then that other person is wrong in their view. If people believed what they thought to be wrong or lies, then they wouldn’t really believe it would they? This is because they’d know it’s a lie, which would then be a part of a new belief that they hold to be true (the truth about the lie). Don’t be surprised or think people are arrogant for denying thousands of other gods and that only theirs is correct, because if my belief is real, all the other ones have to be wrong by its own standard. Jesus was not a pluralist. He said that He is the Way, Truth, and Life, and that no man can be redeemed, but by Him. So why is it then, when someone disagrees with another, they take the liberty to call them names, like bigot, or intolerant jerk? This is the “tolerance trick” I was talking about, and it is just a way of silencing opinions that people don’t want to hear. Look, if you don’t want to hear my opinion, just tell me. I don’t want to blab at you if you don’t want to listen. Walk away, change the subject, tell me to shut up, that’s fine. There is no gun placed to the head or fence to trap a person into a discussion. I’m not going to continue to talk to you if you don’t want. But you see, these people aren’t walking away, they are doing some pushing of their own, and usually its a lot more angry and hostile than anything I’ve offered. I really think it is lame when people say “quit trying to force your religion down my throat.” Well, first of all, if you speak contrary to me, then you are “pushing” your religion on me. This “Don’t shove your religion down my throat” stuff is something that people like to say b/c other people have said it, not realizing that it makes no sense. If someone says you shouldn’t push your morality, I simply ask “Why not?” He’s going to have a hard time answering that question without doing what he says I shouldn’t. It’s like saying, there are no moral rules, but here’s one.
It should also be noted that the motive of the evangelist is for another persons own good of whom they are talking to. Would you say “quit forcing your medical beliefs on me” to a doctor who is trying to give you a cure b/c he sees the west nile symptoms on your skin and if you wait too long the disease will be irreversible and he has a cure in his pocket or back at the lab? That is absolutely absurd, but yet that is how Christians are treated despite their concern. If the non Christian is honest and believes that “religion” shouldn’t be discussed b/c its considered as cramming religion down a throat, then they need to uphold their end it by not cramming their religion which restricts the practice of mine, down our throat. Quit preaching your sermon of humanism that says I need to stop preaching about Christ. Evangelism is a command, not a suggestion, and therefore, to have equal rights according to their thinking, the non Christian needs to just endure the witness encounter and pretend like he’s listening or something. It is a severe hypocrisy when our whole society is not just suggesting religious ideologies, but enforcing them, and the party that is enforcing their religious views says not to suggest yours b/c your cramming stuff down their throat. For example, seat belts are mandated by law and you may receive a ticket if you don’t wear one. They say its for your own good and welfare just like the Christian says its for others own good that we preach, but preachers don’t fine you for not taking his message to heart, but the cop will fine you. Where’s the outcry in that. This sounds very similar to shirea law in the Islamic state where you can be taxed or killed for not being a servant of Allah. Also there is the classroom with its preaching of the religion of evolution, and how about the magazines at the grocery store being all sexually lusty. Sexual impurity is against my religion and you’re not respecting my religious right to not have that kind of thing shoved in my face all the time. I could only imagine the stink that would be raised if we started posting big posters of the ten commandments and posters saying “Repent” at the grocery store and the mall and just say to the people who are offended “well, you don’t have to look at it.” That would never fly, and yet they can plaster huge posters of ¾ nude ladies in the window of victoria’s secret. If you want to talk about a verbal/visual distinction here, a picture is worth a thousand words, so they say. So now, via visual injection, the world is preaching an aweful lot of words these days. Witchcraft on some levels is practiced in schools on halloween, and to try and abolish prayer in school is the trading for the practice of atheism, yet there is no complaint there. The bible says that people will call light, darkness and darkness, light. They consider the gospel annoying or something that pisses them off. But that is like saying “Quit forcing awesome news on us. Quit telling us that death has been defeated and that we can have everlasting life.” Did anyone ever care to think that when they blaspheme my LORD’S name in public that they might be offending me, and should be considered hate speech (at least by their new definition). I would rather people say “damn stupid Christians,” or “Christian damn it.” Better to me that they slam the practitioner, than the founder of the religion, but once again they don’t hesitate to use their religious bias. The point is, is that you cannot avoid “shoving” ideas down someone’s throat. And who the heck came up with that phrase anyway. What ever happened to the term “civilized or engaging conversation or rational discourse.” Has intellectualism left the scene completely. There is no “shoving” going on in most conversations I’ve seen. Everywhere I go, I have the world subliminally telling me how to live and this is due to and in response to a set of beliefs. For example, the idea of guys saying “lets go to the bar and pick up on some chicks.” This wouldn’t be so common and the norm if somebody wasn’t shaping society with their morals and judgments. See the movie Time Changer and you’ll see what I mean, where a man goes forward in time and is horrified at how things have turned out. Bottom line is, action and behavior are determined by belief and you can’t help but to influence people, so really, without you knowing it, you are spreading your religion. The fact that you disagree with my religion, doesn’t mean I am shoving it down your throat, it merely means that you are intolerant for your attitude towards me doing so. You know, there is no way to avoid offending people by speaking against their religion in this view because someone could make a religion from anything. I could believe that God equals sound waves and so therefore you are showing disrespect when you don’t take your shoes off in front of an audio speaker as a sign of respect. The idea to correct all of this “tolerance” mess, is to be tolerant despite the differing views without getting offended. That is the very essence of what the word tolerant means. If everyone agrees, then there is no need to be tolerant, b/c everyone is on the same team. To be tolerant, there must be a disagreement, by definition it necessitates a disagreement. If tolerance is the view that all views are equally valid (as it is presented), then what if I say that Jesus is the Messiah and all the Jews are wrong. The relativist would say “you can’t say that,” and maybe continue “how would you like it if someone told you, you were wrong.” Well, in all honesty, it wouldn’t bother me a bit (why should it). I’m getting the feeling that the reason it bothers most people is because of the brainwashing of this post modern mindset that gets them amped up to the point where they act like asses to each other. Do you see what this understanding of tolerance is producing? People feel they have the right to get angry and nasty with others simply because they hold a viewpoint that is different. This definition of tolerance is not causing people to be more open minded, and charitable and kind and warm to people of opposing views, but the opposite. This definition is not advancing us towards maturity, but is pushing us back to childhood. How would I like it if someone said my God is not real, or Christianity is bunk? It wouldn’t and doesn’t bother me a bit, because I’m a GROWN UP ADULT.



This post modern ideology is the root of all the “hate crime” whiney crap you hear about. As adults we understand that not everyone is going to think like we do, and we don’t have to cause a ruckus when they don’t. People put down my beliefs all the time, water off a duck to me. You know, if all views are equally valid (according to their definition), and one of the views is that all the Jews are wrong because Jesus is the Messiah, then that view must also be equally valid. The view that not all views are equally valid would have to be considered equally valid as well. This is equally and not equally valid at the same time. This definition cannot be lived out in real life. We have a self contradictory worldview that destroys itself. The real definition of tolerance is not that all views are equally valid, but that all human beings are equally valid. All human beings should get equal respect, even when we don’t agree with certain people. Tolerance REQUIRES a disagreement, or we are all in the same boat. You only tolerate that which you disagree with. What you agree with doesn’t require tolerance. Relativists who use the term tolerance, really mean relativism. They really mean “if you think anyone is objectively right, you’re intolerant.” To translate that, they really mean “if you think relativism is not the right view, you’re wrong.” I tolerate other Islamic people, and I think they ought to be able to practice their religion with freedom. I don’t affirm their beliefs obviously because I’m a Christian. Affirming and tolerating are 2 different things. This new version of the word tolerance is basically coerced affirmation, in that you have to accept a viewpoint that you don’t agree with. That is severe dogmatism and downright tyrannical oppression. On many campuses across America, they force students to hold the social liberal view, as evidenced by the fact that you can get expelled for writing a paper on why homosexuality is wrong, etc. That’s is forceful and oppressive. So anyway, while all people have equal value, the truth is, is that not all views have equal value: some are good, some are bad, some are smart, some are dumb, some are true, some are false, some are foolish, and some are dangerous. True tolerance holds that some ideas are false, even some cherished ideas, and that we can be charitable enough to discuss it and come to conclusions. People today seem to be largely closed off to meaningful and intelligent discussion on matters that matter the most. People think they are being open minded, but actually they are the opposite. They are only tolerant to people who think like they do. You know, intolerance should be considered fine if they truly believed what they say about tolerance. On a different note, built into our rational intuition, we have the kind of things that you know, but you don’t know how you know it, and if you didn’t know these intuitive things, you wouldn’t know anything else. It’s like coming to the conclusion that Socrates is mortal when we only gave the information that Socrates is a man and that all men are mortal. We were not specifically taught the conclusion of Socrates being mortal, but we have the intuition of reason built in, mirroring God, being made in His image, the divine Logos, or Logic. These rational intuitions are just there and if they are not there at a certain young age, then we would think something is wrong with the child’s development. There are not only rational intuitions, but moral intuitions as well. A built in moral code or conscience. We know that certain things are wrong, like slavery, raping, genocide, stealing, torturing babies for fun, etc. And if you think these things aren’t wrong, then I’m not going to say “oh, that’s an interesting alternate morality you have there,” I’m going to say “Get help man, you’re sick.” We are not just built up from a baby, molded purely by physical factors, with pure autonomy to make truth be what we think it to be. We do not create our own universe, because it was already created, and we have come prepackaged a certain way that we were not in control of. When people argue in favor of logic, aren’t they assuming the laws of logic when arguing them? Or to argue that logic doesn’t exist, while having to utilize logic to do so. Do you think people who try to demonstrate the reliability of the human eye, do that with their eyes closed? No, they use their eyes even when demonstrating the usefulness of them. I equate these examples to lend to the presupposed programming of our world and minds. Of course nobody would try to dispute logic, or try to prove that eyes don’t work while using visual charts and graphs, but that is essentially what the relativist does. The relativist contradicts himself and can’t consistently live with his view, even simply by using the words “intolerant,” or “bad.” Excuse me, did you say the word “Intolerant” and “bad.” How did you find a way to work those words into your vocabulary seeing that you are a relativist. You can never say should, shouldn’t, or that’s evil, etc. You can’t break the rules in a game that has no rules. There is no such thing as evil, or wickedness in this mindset. In fact, without God, there can be no guage of objective goodness or badness. The relativist cannot promote the obligation of justice, fairness, or even tolerance. There is no obligation to treat equals equally, to punish the guilty and let the innocent go free, to treat people with respect, in fact, with relativism, there are no moral obligations what so ever. Relativist can’t ask “why does god allow so much evil,” b/c no evil can exist in their view. The only thing they can say is “I don’t believe in God b/c of things I don’t like. If He made brussel sprouts, I don’t believe in him,” or something to that effect. A mother snugly secures the seat belts around her children before she drives the car into a lake so that she can resume a romantic relationship with a man who doesn’t want children (true story). This story or another true story of the Canaanite people’s sacrifices to their false god of Molech cannot produce any sort of anger over such wickedness, because on the relativist platform, wickedness is an illusion. The Canaanites would heat up with fire, the large hands of the iron statue of Molech to a bright orange, and then place the babies into the searing hot hands to sizzle. Pretty sick, huh. A modern day version of that may include micro-waving infants, but all of this can mean nothing worth real response to a relativist.
People think relativism promotes tolerance, but it makes the idea and reality of tolerance impossible. Why ought I tolerate people when you relativists told me that is up to me? This is the price that it costs to deny objective morality. I think you know better though. Someone could be at the bank talking to his neighbor about how morals are relative, and then someone cuts him in line and the relativist wants to take issue with the other guy going to the back of the line. He is not just saying “this is my own moral opinion, you can ignore it if you like.” No, he wants him to get to the back of the line. Do you see how this view slits it’s own throat and essentially commits suicide? Basically, if this view is correct, then it cannot be correct. This is not a word game, it is just that moral relativism is WRONG. Plain and simple. You can’t find a way in which it sounds right, because it is not right. Sometimes when I talk to people about this and they get a little frustrated because they are seeing their stance crumble before them, and they say “now you got me all confused.” I think about saying, well actually, you were confused before we started talking, I just helped you realize it, but now you are getting frustrated because you don’t want to let go of your pet humanist doctrines, and you are starting to see that they don’t work in the real world. Now, just for mind jogging fun, I’ll lay down some of the common self contradictory statements being parroted around out there these days.
1. “All knowledge is limited to observation.” Oh really, did you observe that generalization about all knowledge. That is very interesting since that statement is not observable itself. 2. “There are no absolutes.” This statement is an absolute.
3. “Everything is relative.” This statement is meant to be taken as an absolute.
4. “We can’t know anything for certain.” Yet, we are supposed to know this statement with certainty.
5. “There is no truth.” Except. Of course, the one just given.
6. “What you believe is determined by psychological, environmental, chemical or class conditioning.” Then this belief also is the result of such conditioning as well, and is equally worthless.
7. “No one can know anything about God, for He is unknowable.” This statement requires a great deal of knowledge about God.
8. “seeing is believing.” If this is true, then you do not have a foundation for saying seeing is believing. If what you’re saying is true, then you could never know that it is true, because the very thing you’re saying excludes the possibility of you knowing that. You have not visually “seen” the idea of seeing being believing. Blind people must not believe in anything. The wind, and radio and tv waves must not be real either.
9. “Trust nobody,”(except them), or “question everything”(except that statement they just uttered).
10. If I say I have a brother who is an only child, that would be a silly self refuting statement.

Here is a weak relativist argument: “because there are different societies who have come to different conclusions about what is moral and what is not, we can say that therefore no one is correct and morals are relative to whatever society you live in.” First of all, this argument commits suicide because they are claiming that their particular cultural/societal relativism is correct and therefore the multiple cultures that would vehemently disagree with them, would have to be wrong about their absolutistic ideas. Also, it doesn’t logically follow that because there are differing conclusions, that no one is right and morals are relative. It also doesn’t follow that since one time in our history we thought that the earth was flat and another time we thought it was round, and there were differences of opinions there in between, that the earth was suddenly formless because of the disagreement. NO, the earth has always been a CERTAIN way irrespective of our perceptions. Hopefully we can align our perceptions to the CERTAIN truth of life and things. So, for that argument, we can see that no moral conclusion can be drawn. It is simply an observation of different points of view, that’s all. People disagree on all sorts of things, that’s great, nice observation, but nothing follows from that. People disagree about the nature of the atom, but the atom remains to be a particular way.
Here’s another weak relativist argument: That we ought to do what our individual society prescribes and that, that is what is right. This is called conventionalism. They isolate themselves and say that they create their morality and we ought not interfere with another culture’s morality. If society says what is right and wrong, then everything that the society determines turns our to be moral just by definition. This reduces morality to law, or moral statements to power. This idea however would condemn people like Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Corrie Ten Boom, because moral reformers are ones who stand up in society and say “what everyone else is doing is wrong.” They are opposing the “moral” society, and by definition now, must be viewed as being immoral. Rescuing Jews would have been immoral during that time and that place for Corrie Ten Boom because she violated the ruling dictates of that culture. Discussions about morality in the first place are incoherent are pointless if the relativist were right, so why are they discussing it. Why complain about the unjust legal system? That kind of presumes that the legal systems ought to be just, or that you can even know what “just” is, right? There is no way to morally improve with a relativist (depressing), only change or shift in morals.



Next, I want to take the time to say that there is something that I know about everyone on the planet, and you don’t know that I know it. You know it, but you don’t want other people to know about it. That thing is that you have a bad self image. It is a darkness that you try to hide and you can’t get rid of it. It is the universal human condition. We see something inside ourselves that we do not like, that is twisted and broken. Something evil down there lurks. We try to deny it and not to show it to others, but we know something is wrong. And that has a feeling and that feeling has a name, and the name of the feeling of our own moral brokenness is guilt. We all feel guilty. The only people who don’t feel guilty are sociopaths. And so why do you suppose we feel guilty? Some say it is culture that programs us to feel it, but that doesn’t make sense because where did the society get it from, and why is it assumed that the societal teachings are that powerful. Last time I checked everyone was telling me I’m ok and a good person. This has been my whole life, and that being the case, I should not feel the way I do, nor anyone else, who was brought up in this culture and society. Could it possibly be that the reason you feel guilty is because…. you are guilty? Have you ever thought about that? You could say that you were raised a certain way, but parental figures are not the only influence in society. Friends are often more potent of an influence than parents. The culture, which is diverse is also a major influence. So, there you see that, “how you were raised” is filled with variety, and so how you came to certain conclusions is the same and contains the same conditions as how most everyone else came to theirs. I guess the only thing left to do is to weigh evidences for who is right and who is wrong. Someone once told me “that is Westernized thinking to say that Jesus is the only way and other such absolutistic things.” Oh ok, that’s mighty Eastern of you to say so. Why don’t you just say that you don’t like my “programming” and that your “programming” is better. That is more academically sound and honest.
Some people suppress their guilt however, and pretend that they are “good” people, but I gotta ask, what exactly makes someone good or evil? Most people say they are a good person, because they do good things? Well, then doesn’t doing evil make someone evil? You can’t have it one way, if you aren’t willing to say it the other way around with this being the standard. Any time someone says that people are basically good at heart, I just pull out my keys and jingle them in front of their face. If people are basically good, we would not need keys at all. Evidence is all around us that we are tainted to the core. Everyone most assuredly has a huge rap sheet of crimes against God. If you are 20 years old and sinned only 3 sins a day (which is far less than we actually do sin each day), that is 20,000 crimes over 20 years. The police would be all over you if you had committed even 20 crimes, let alone 20K. Truth be told, the more I am transformed by God to righteousness, the more I have the clarity to see how utterly depraved a person I am. This doesn’t mean I get all depressed about it like our mental health book talks about, but rather it gives me hope, because I know God is doing a work in me, because I could never see the truth about myself on my own. The smart way to deal with the guilt I mentioned earlier, is not through denial, but through forgiveness, and that is where Jesus comes in. Christianity speaks TRUTHfully. What it teaches resonates with our deepest intuitions about the world. #1 The universe is a moral universe with laws that apply to human beings, and #2 we have broken some of those laws many times, and are guilty of moral crimes against our Sovereign. This is a dual message of justice and love. We already know that those who commit moral crimes ought to be punished. That’s the bad news. But amnesty and mercy is offered to those who abandon their rebellion and seek forgiveness, and this is the good news, and its news that is worth thinking about. Some people complain about the way God chooses to deal with the world. You see, God created us from the start as perfect, but not immutable, for example, a vase can be perfect, but can also be shattered, with no fault to the manufacturer of the vase. Perfect, but not without the possibility of that being changed. Well, our perfect-ness got changed, and just as the U.S. represents us in many ways, Adam and Eve are our representative heads so to speak. If our country's representatives screw up, we all feel the heat. The heat from humanity's head is a sinful nature. Nobody ever complains when we receive good things we don't deserve from our representative heads. Nobody complains about others going to heaven when they don’t deserve that reward in the least. Don’t think you have a better sense of justice than your creator. Think of it this way: How could the sheriff send anyone to jail if he didn't offer him a pardon first? The answer is simple. If he's guilty, the sheriff is justified in throwing him in jail. There is no obligation to offer a pardon to a guilty man. The same is true of God. He can justly convict a man who has broken His law even though the sinner has heard nothing about God's pardon in Jesus. God owes no one salvation. He can offer it to whomever He wishes. That's why it's called grace.
Some say that the Holocaust was evil and ask why God would allow such depravity? Later, when the tables turn and their own behavior is in question, they argue that morality is merely a matter of opinion. What if God disallowed you from doing all the evil in your own life. What if every time you were about to say something in anger, He took away your vocal cords, or every time you are about to sexually lust after someone other than your spouse, He blurred your vision. I bet that person would then have a problem with good, and not with evil, because it is his own evil. This reduces their earlier objection to: "How could a good God allow things that are contrary to my opinion?" or, to put it more bluntly, "I can't believe in the existence of a God who would disagree with me." YOU CANNOT SAY MORALS ARE RELATIVE AND THEN HAVE A PROBLEM WITH “EVIL.” And anyway, evil existing in the world is compelling evidence for the existence of God, not evidence against the existence of God. I can demonstrate that by asking you to give me a definition of evil. Don’t give me examples of evil things, but a definition. My definition is that evil is a departure from good or the way things ought to be. Notice that evil is discussed as it being a real feature of the world, and not just a difference of opinion, but a REAL problem. If you raise objection to God existing because of evil, realize that there must be a transcendent standard of good in the world from which evil is a departure. I don’t know what crooked is unless I know what straight is, and determining the extent of the departure from straight, will show us how crooked something is. This knowledge cannot exist without God. The problem of evil question depends upon the existence of God, to even be a coherent problem. If morality were a result of random chance mutations in evolution, then it would be of accidental nature and not worth obeying or listening to. If scrabble letters fell on the table and by chance part of it in the middle formed the statement “don’t stand up,” I would think that is interesting and cool that that happened, but I wouldn’t take the command seriously, and wouldn’t be inclined to listen to it and stay seated. Or if there were software issues at the legislators office and it jumbled up laws, making new and different laws, no one would take them seriously. We wouldn’t take it seriously because it has no mind behind it and therefore no justification and force. People have postulated that morality comes from evolutionary processes. They show how they observed monkey’s giving bananas to each other or with holding bananas, etc. But, reality cannot be merely reduced to behavior. All evolution can do (if it were true) is describe why we behaved a certain way in the past, but evoking evolution as an explanation needs to do more than report observations. It needs to not just report on the PAST behavior, but tell us why we ought to behave a certain way in the FUTURE. It needs to be able to prescribe behavior and not just describe behavior. Morality is all about what we ought to do and not what we have done. And anyway, morals are not scientific principles to begin with. Chemical relationships within the genes of chance random mutations and natural selection cannot explain and account for love and hate, kindness, etc. Morals can’t come from a finite mind either, because you’d have to do an infinite regress to find out where that mind got it from to question the validity. There are only 3 views as to where morals come from: #1 that they are imaginations (relativism, which I already dismantled), #2 that they happened by accident and we have just discovered them as a kind of furniture of the universe with nothing behind them (evolutionary thinking, which I’ve dismantled), or #3 that they happened on purpose, which means they must have a mind behind them and had a purposer. Commands always have a commander, and laws a law giver. If we have illusionary or accidental commands, then why listen to them. Why do we get feelings of guilt and have a sense of and expectation of punishment. Why do small children already understand fairness, by complaining about what is not fair, when they were not taught such things.



Now, in the case of some of the more ambiguous examples of situational ethics, we need to look at the details. Some math you can do in your head, some moral decision making you can do in your head. Some math is really hard and requires taking out the pencil and paper with the details, as with certain moral questions that are harder. When Paul addresses the people who are not to judge their brother for something the brother deemed ok, it is not because he was promoting relativism, but because they were engaging in an area of Christian liberty. If you go against your conscience, when your conscience is improperly informed and the act would be ok to do, then the principle of violating your conscience is the disobedience to God and not the act itself, over which your conscience was hurting. For example, alcohol drinking is ok in moderation, but some think it is sinful to even drink a sip. Drunken-ness is what is sin, not drinking. However, if you think drinking even a sip is sin for whatever reason, then don’t do it, because then for you, it is sin. Do you see the distinction and how that is not an advocation of relativism. God laid down the rules pretty plainly, and if you know how to use a few hermeneutical principles, you’ll have no problem exegeting scripture. Next to address, is the minimalist ethic that is out there. But you know, the minimalist ethic is too minimal. It states that you can do whatever you want, so long as you don’t hurt anyone. First off, that’s wrong because that’s not what God said, but also I want to ask, what about peeping toms, or dentists who want to fondle patients while they are out cold from meds. They didn’t hurt anybody. What they don’t know can’t hurt them. This should be viewed as morally acceptable according to this minimalist ethic framework, right? Swinging your fists so long as you don’t connect with someone’s jaw is a real poor moral structure to start with, besides which, it is really hard to know all the in’s and out’s of whether or not you are doing damage to someone else. Consenting to some act does not in itself make it ok either. If Matthew Sheppard consented to having his skull crushed in and hung on a wooden fence in 30 degree weather, would that have made the act ok? NO, human value is not ok to destroy, even if the one involved is consenting. Prostitution is an example of this. A baby not understanding what murder is, does not mean that abortion is ok. A 6 year old consenting to marrying a 40 year old is not ok. Why can’t a whole family get married in a big incestuous bond, or me and my pet. What, are you a narrow minded species-ist. Funny huh. There was an actual case where a man consented to be eaten alive by a cannibal. The cannibal consented as well. This sick thing happened in Germany. I don’t know if the guy used anesthetics or not, but that really creeps me out either way. Anyway, the next argument goes, that all humans are trained their morality, therefore it is not inherent in us. Ok, so what! What bearing does the fact that we are taught things have? Does a baby know the square root of 4? Nope. And does that mean that the square root of 4 is not 2? Of course not. You still TEACH them that, and it is still CORRECT. If you say it depends on the language, I say “we are both using English tokens and you understand English, right? Enough said on the whole language game people play, because if linguistic construct means whatever you want, then their whole point is moot and they can’t even talk. They might as well just never open their mouth again. You can’t say that the square root is 2 BECAUSE you were taught that, and you cannot do this with morals either. This epistemological rabbit hole is going to swallow a person who thinks like this. Being taught something does not make it untrue or make you unable to know if it is true. If you go that route, then you were also taught by yourself or others that you were simply taught things from a social construct, and that idea becomes equally useless as holding any truth value. Teaching things doesn’t mean we invented the things. Everything is not known by the five senses. Any memory of things are not known by the five senses. History is outside of ourselves and senses as well. Even our thoughts are outside our physical body. What I ate last night is not known by my five senses. Last night it was known by my five senses, but not now. People talk about objectivity only relating to the five senses to determine the truth of things, but we know that there are OBJECTIVE moral codes, which are not detectable by the five senses. The thing is, is that there are other faculties that we must have before we can even use and utilize the five senses. There are many immaterial things. Truth is, is that you can’t prove anything without God. He is the precondition for science and the senses and all things un-seen. You can’t pick my brain, but you can pick my mind, which is immaterial. The only way I’ll let you pick my brain is if I need surgery and you’re a surgeon. As we have seen, moral relativism doesn’t really address morality at all. One way you can tell how nice a system is, is by looking for that system in action. Is there a relativism moral champion or hero. NO. A sociopathic view is what is produced by relativism, one where a person does whatever they want. This type of person is a homicide detective’s worse nightmare, and if a person actually marches most consistently with the relativist moral drumbeat, you will find a dangerous individual. A sociopath is the hero of the relativist view, the one who represents its best expression and accurate representation. Any deviation from this model is most likely an inconsistent blended relativist, who adopts some Christian morals or other objective moral rules. Wrapping up, I want to say that the gospel is useless unless relativism is stomped because there is no need to repent and turn to God, and that is why I see it as necessary to address this not only as an intellectual concern here, but a moral one. One in which will determine everyone’s eternal condition. Thanks for reading. I hope my thoroughness on this topic will allow you to spot these errors in thinking a mile away, and prevent you from falling prey to the lie of relativism, that is why I gave so many examples. I could probably write a 100 pg book on this topic alone, but I believe this will do for now. This Christmas, be thankful that there is a God who is TRUTH and that if you are in the TRUTH as God revealed Himself in scriptures, then you have reason to rejoice, as the weak objections of the world in all its false religions, inevitably fall short of the bar of reason, as you’d expect. And if you are not in Christ, I pray that this New Year, God may grant you repentance so that you may be saved from intellectual and spiritual death here and now, and the wrath that is to come and also to know the richness that is found in the one true God.
Tom