MANY RELIGIOUS LEADERS ARE RELATIVISTS IN
DISGUISE AND MANIPULATING YOU
Moral relativism is that morality is just whatever you
decide it to be. The doctrine that doing wrong is really wrong is called moral
objectivism. The relativist thinks it is good and right to fool the unwary.
This manipulative streak is marked in many religious leaders especially those
who call themselves progressive.
A religion defining itself as good means nothing. Good is a vague term in a
world of relativists. A religion has to be good instead of defining itself. If
it is not good or good enough then it is a bad and false religion. A religion
defining itself as good proves it is not good for it has no right to do that.
Religion says it believes in objective morality and objective spiritual or
religious truth. In other words, not praying is a sin and there is a God no
matter what we think or believe. Our beliefs, our opinions, our desires and even
what we think we know have no bearing on facts. Facts are facts and it is our
job to recognise them if we can and not their job to suit us. You must cherish
facts for being the truth and not because it suits you to embrace them. But many
people are moral and religious relativists - they think moral and spiritual and
religious truth is whatever you want it to be. If you think murdering heretics
is right then it really is right for you. If somebody else says it is wrong they
are right too. It is safe to assume that if you are a relativist there is
nothing stopping you from pretending you are not one. You could argue that it is
morally right for you to kid people that you believe in objective morality and
objective religious/spiritual truth. Given how many people are relativists, it
is plausible that you are in fact a relativist no matter what you say or how
much you battle against something say late abortion on demand.
Moral relativism leads to a culture where people think that doing what feels
good or looks good at the time is good. Try telling that to the drug addict or
the bank robber. Religion operates the same way. Believers pray and attend
worship and a placebo effect kicks in. It may not last but nevertheless it
results in religion getting power over lives and marriages and schools and
politicians and the media. People keep going back for a refresher placebo and
that upholds the structure of power. The people empower religion for it feels
good at the time and don't seem to worry much about the devastating consequences
for sanity and education and healthcare that ensue. The person starting on drugs
or going to rob the bank or who worships feels powerful - this feeling acts like
a placebo and the person no longer feels that the bad consequences will come.
The Christians condemn moral relativists which shows they are being hypocritical
and unfair and vicious. Moral relativism is not nice. If it were true, it would
be a pity. But as bad as it is, it is worse to go about thinking that that God
sanctions it and just as bad to refuse to admit that your absolute or objective
morals are relativistic.
Christians are clear that moral relativists and atheists who criticise the Bible
God who opposes homosexuality and advocates execution of adulterers etc are
making value judgements that they have no right to make. They say that as they
are moral relativists, they forfeit the right to render that value judgment. But
if they are moral relativists themselves and won't admit it then they are worse
than the relativists whom they oppose.
A good way to promote moral relativism in the guise of opposing it is to teach
stupid absurd doctrines or to urge people to sacrifice themselves for a faith
there is no suitable evidence for. Roman Catholicism is famous for that
approach.
If a religion is more harmful than good, members start to rationalise how they
can have a clear conscience and still be involved in it. Just like lies lead to
more lies so excuses and rationalisation lead to more excuses and rationalising.
Even if moral relativism were true and made sense, there would be no doubt that
some supporters are really rationalising.
Situation Ethics, the doctrine that moral rules need to be scrapped in favour of one rule: love, of Joseph Fletcher fame is said to claim just that. He wrote that his ethics is rooted "in the classic tradition of Western Christian morals." He did not specify if he meant Christian morals as in what the Bible teaches. If you think Situationism is relativist then he is saying Christianity is relativist.
A quote, ""Situation ethics goes part of the way with
natural law, by accepting reason as the instrument of moral judgment, while
rejecting the notion that the good is 'given' in the nature of things,
objectively - the situationist follows a moral law or violates it according to
love's need" (Situation Ethics, page 26). But if you think Situationism is not
relativism though close to it, you can still say that what looks like Christian
situationism is equally likely to be relativism for the two can be hard to
distinguish at times. Fletcher complained later in his book against Jewish and
Christian legalism "which makes the "claim to have adduced universally agreed
and therefore valid 'natural' moral laws". The answer is that relativism can be
legalist for it is a mass of errors and confusion.
Fletcher said, "Principles, Yes, But Not Rules". The controversy is about
whether there is a difference. There is. Helping a baby should be done for the
betterment of the baby without even caring if it is a rule or not. In a sense,
making the rule IS relativist for a rule should not matter. If Christianity is
not relativist, it still has relativism in its DNA.
For Fletcher, trying to do the most loving thing is not about reaching a
conclusion but about making a decision. Thus any religion that gives you moral
conclusions is cheating you and turning you into a child.
One point that shows Fletcher has assessed Christianity correctly is in how his
ethic of love lets murder be committed under grave circumstances. He is actually
stricter than the Bible which just simply orders that people be murdered by
stoning for praying to other gods or adultery etc.
Religious leaders come across relativist and near-relativist ideas a lot and they absorb a lot of those ideas perhaps more than they realise. But it is impossible to deny that they have to be relativist as Christian doctrine in particular and its morality make no sense and are devoid of reason and evidence.