It's all relative...

And ye shall seek me, and find [me], when ye shall search for me with all your heart. ~ Jeremiah 29:13

In a previous post I mentioned a friend and co-worker challenged me last year to read the Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion". One of the topics we discussed at length was are their moral absolutes? It is an idea commonly held that and we say things like; whatever!?!; that may be true for you but not for me; or that's just your perception. We live in a very relativistic society. The following is an excerpt from our correspondence.

I find humanity both fascinating and sad at our ability to rationalize away any and all manner of sin, unchecked desires or debauchery at the expense of others. No one is immune and it just points to the total depravity of man and our need for a Savior.

I was listening to author and speaker Ravi Zacharias this morning and he posed a very interesting question. He said; “Is it possible that somewhere in the deepest recesses of the human heart we are really not battling intellectual ideas as much as we are fighting for the right of our sexual proclivity and our passionate indulgences?” He went on to mention that this is not just a religious point of view because Aldous Huxley wrote in his book “Ends and Means” that; “We objected to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom”.

I personally believe in moral absolutes and I do not believe they are based solely on societal norms or what is “socially acceptable.” I firmly believe that a belief in absolute moral values is reasonable. I have heard many arguments against moral absolutes including that ethics are really only general principles that serve the purpose of structuring society or that we have to observe general rules of society in order to make man happy, but that they are not ultimately binding. Then of course we get into the “lifeboat” discussion and situational ethics.

One author wrote; “As reasonable as these proposals sound, there is a fundamental inconsistency to a denial of absolutes: in order to deny absolutes, one must imply that there are absolutes in the process of denial. To deny absolutes, you have to make an absolute denial.”

Think about it; if everything is relative was Hitler wrong for genocide or was he being true to his naturalistic and humanistic world-view? Did he simply take his belief that there are no moral absolutes and in the process dehumanize the Jews and carry it to its logical conclusion? If there are no moral absolutes then why do we have war crimes tribunals or decry genocide of the Kurds by Sadaam Hussein? Why would we be appalled by Pol Pot and the killing fields in Cambodia or Mao’s Cultural Revolution? In their society these actions apparently are/were socially acceptable, correct? If there is no objective moral reality and no right or no wrong then we should all be able to do whatever we like and it is not morally wrong. They were all being pragmatic and the end justified the means, right? They were all just following their passionate indulgences, and in their cases it wasn’t driven by sexual indulgences but an insatiable appetite for power and control.

To me where it breaks down is not when it is on paper but where it affects the individual on a personal level. If it makes me happy, and in my own mind punching teenagers in the face is acceptable, then why would that teen’s parent have a problem with it? That teen is just random DNA that has no value. I don’t think his parents would agree that I was just taking no moral absolutes to its logical conclusion. No moral absolutes are okay in theory until we feel our personal rights have been impinged. If what “works” or “satisfies” is right who decides, and if it makes me happy but you unhappy who is right?

I recently read a fascinating article by Alton Chase in the on-line edition of the Atlantic Monthly called “Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber”. Chase is a Harvard graduate and his academic life parallels Ted Kaczynski’s. In the article Chase talks about their Ivy League education and the overt objective to strip away any Judeo-Christian values to the point of the dehumanization of man. He outlines how Kaczynski’s world-view was shaped to the point where he believed he was killing ideas and not humans. Chase came away with the impression that this was the logical outcome and that in Kaczynski’s mind it was the logical, rational and sane conclusion. What is also troubling is that the Unabomber’s Manifesto is being viewed by many as groundbreaking and visionary.

The most telling segment of the article was when Chase states; “The real story of Ted Kaczynski is one of the nature of modern evil -- evil that results from the corrosive powers of intellect itself, and its arrogant tendency to put ideas above common humanity. It stems from our capacity to conceive theories or philosophies that promote violence or murder in order to avert supposed injustices or catastrophes, to acquiesce in historical necessity, or to find the final solution to the world's problems -- and by this process of abstraction to dehumanize our enemies. We become like Raskolnikov, in Crime and Punishment, who declares, "I did not kill a human being, but a principle!"

"Guided by theories, philosophies, and ideologies, the worst mass killers of modern history transformed their victims into depersonalized abstractions, making them easier to kill. Much the way Stalin, citing Communist dogma, ordered the murder of millions of peasants toward "the elimination of the Kulaks as a class," so Kaczynski rationalized his murders as necessary to solve "the technology problem."

"The conditions that produce violence continue to flourish. Despite their historically unprecedented affluence, many middle-class Americans, particularly the educated elite, are still gripped by despair. The education system continues to promote bleak visions of the future. Meanwhile, alienating ideologies, offering the false promise of quick solutions through violence, proliferate."

"Although most Americans strongly condemn terrorist acts committed in the name of political agendas of which they do not approve, many turn a blind eye toward savagery done in the name of ideals they share. Indeed, many are reasonably comfortable with violence short of murder, as long as it's done for a cause they support. It was easy for Americans to unite in condemning the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, because few approved of the bombers' goals: the destruction of the state of Israel and of the U.S. government. But some conservatives seem to be untroubled by anti-abortion bombings or by the rise of armed militias, and some liberals consistently condone or ignore the proliferation of terrorism putatively committed on behalf of animals or the environment. Not surprisingly, then, ideologically inspired violence has become increasingly commonplace -- tolerated and sometimes even praised.”

Here is the link should you want to read the article in its entirety.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/06/chase.htm

Darwin in his early writings of the Origin of Species made comments that he understood that the ramifications of anti-theism were dire. He knew that the philosophical implications of nature read in tooth and claw would engender horrific carnage in the years, decades and centuries to come. He understood the logical implications of the world view that would be engendered from what he was propounding. He had that idea some how, and worried about the logical conclusion that would come from an individual or government taking it to its full extent.

C.S. Lewis noted in his book “The Abolition of Man” that values do not change greatly from culture to culture, but that they are very similar. Our challenge is to name just one. He stated that many things are universally recognized as wrong such as cruelty to children, rape, murder without cause, etc. Even great thinkers like Immanuel Kant and Martin Buber talked about things like the “categorical imperative” or treating people as persons and not things. What is interesting is that both agree in principle with Jesus Christ when he talked about in Matthew 22:34-40 when he told the religious leaders that however we want people to treat us we should treat them.

So what is my point with all of this? I guess I am struggling to understand how reducing ourselves to simple creatures that have a pointless existence can be reconciled with the fact that deep within the heart of every man or woman there is a burning desire for truth, relevance, justice, fair-play, honesty and answers to the ultimate questions of why are we here and how did we get here. If Dawkins is right and “The universe we observe … has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference.” Then why even waste money or time with research or science? Or could the alternative be true; God put all of those desires in our heart including the quest for the answers to those ultimate questions? Is he whispering to us all in the shadows trying to get our attention? I have heard it said that God whispered in Creation but he shouted his existence with the birth and death of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Thomas Nagel who is a professor of Philosophy at NYU was at least honest when he stated; “In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning and design as fundamental features of the world” (New York University philosopher, Thomas Nagel, “The Last Word”).

Having a relativistic outlook and denying that there are moral absolutes is great in theory but next time you get pulled over for speeding just tell the police officer the speed limit "may be true for you but not for me" and see if he agrees. No one can deny that within the heart of every human we cry for justice, and we all believe in our inalienable rights. This need for justice and universal moral truth is one of the strongest arguments for the existence for God. He placed it there so we would seek absolute truth.

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." ~ Proverbs 14:12