More on relativism (an unfairly biased and immature rant)
So, I have much more to say about the concept of relativism but it's probably going to sound a lot more like me complaining than commentating. Knowing this well in advance, I've decided to fully embrace the tantrum and give you an honest look into the infantile complainer portion of my brain that stands on its soapbox and hurls anything it can in every direction like a monkey at the zoo.
Deep down, I think my biggest problem with the incongruity between relativism and Christianity is that relativism has at least some semblance of equality. It allows for the "true for you" clause and doesn't give a flying crap how radically different someone else's beliefs are. Christianity, on the other hand, makes the inflammatory presumption with a nanny-nanny-boo-boo expression that "your beliefs are inferior because they are not the same as mine." It's all very "wait until your Father comes home, then you'll get what's coming to you." People need to be "saved" because there is something inherently bad and wrong with humanity and the world.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do still call myself a Christian and subscribe well enough to the belief structure to get by while, at the same time, struggling with each concept as it comes up. I rarely get the chance to tackle such things in real-time and usually brood about them long enough that my immaturity can start picking them apart with the age old argument of "that doesn't make sense" without much evidence or logic to back that up. There's nothing particularly awry with my own sense of disagreement; I've gotten used to it by now, as have a lot of the people around me, and it's generally accepted as a quirky yet charming part of my personality. I'm not trying to start fights but I am searching for continuity and some semblance of understanding in the world around me where this particular belief structure permeates quite a bit of my culture.
When people campaign against relativism, though, it makes me want to understand why. The basic answer to the "why" question is, of course, because it disagrees with one of the main tenets of the religion of those against relativism: to "make the world Christian" when it very obviously and sometimes forcibly does not want to be. Sometimes, on the world stage, it looks like Christianity is one that teases all of the younger siblings and there's no real authority figure to tell them "leave the world alone."
Maybe I'm being too harsh. I do recognize that Christianity does a lot of good things in the world, helping the poor and hungry of numerous nations and standing for moral values and whatnot, but I'm not sure that completely outweighs the negativity that the "we're right, you're wrong" attitude conveys. I get reminded of this when watching movies like Elizabeth when, in as recently as 1644, British Protestants were being justifiably burned at the stake as heretics for not being Catholic. That's a severe digression; I don't want to be one of those guys that brings up "atrocities committed in the name of God" every time I open my mouth.
I don't discourage religious belief of practice, but I do recommend against a forceful or guilt-laden approach to evangelism that seems to be the recent trend. Church is, and always will be, "church" to some people and this particular concept does not seem to be universally accepted even by the blanketing noun I use when referring to "Christianity." Methodists are different than Covenant churchgoers, Protestants as a whole are different than Catholics, Catholics are different than Eastern Orthodox folks, and on it goes. Christians are different than Muslims, Muslims are different than Jews, Jews are different than Buddhists, Hindus, Tribal peoples worldwide, Native Americans - the list goes on and on. And I'm not just referring to current time, either.
Historically speaking, religious diversity has always been a fact of human life. People branch out as they learn more information and require something that fits them differently than their neighbor. To say, as a Christian, that this is wrong today implies that it has always been wrong, which doesn't fit well with the multitudinous civilizations that existed and thrived before Christianity was "established" in about the fifth century. Yes, I went there. Christianity as we know it is not 2000 years old, more like 1500. It's a small distinction from so much later, but it is important to note that for quite a long time by generational standards Christianity was a very amalgamous thing, not just the sum of various texts sandwiched into a single volume.
I've talked about the Bible before and I undoubtedly will again, so I'm going to spare the book from the focus of this diatribe.
I don't particularly know what it is I'm sick of or whether I'm sick of it more lately than usual. I have thoughts and feelings all the time, of course, and going to either of the particular churches I "frequent" tends to enflame my opinionated side. Maybe "sick of" is too harsh a term for how I feel about things lately; perhaps I just don't have a calm enough outlet for my discontentment with the situation as I see it.
In all honesty, I just get annoyed when someone like President Bush, who I don't see as an authority on much these days (religion most of all, Mister War-on-Terror), jump on the Pope's bandwagon regarding relativism as if he has some kind of clout in that particular realm. The president isn't even Catholic; we haven't had a Catholic president since JFK and America's "Democratic" separation of Church and State makes it difficult to care what particular set of beliefs our political leaders subscribe to.
I guess I really do see things like "justice" and "truth" as relative concepts because I believe so strongly in the individuality of humanity and the universally-sanctioned autonomy of each person's mind. Sure, people can agree on concepts like "justice, truth and God" but that doesn't make those people the same or mean they believe the same things. That seems to grant a foothold to relativism and the crack opens wider when I try to account for some six billion people on the planet just today, becoming Pacific-trench wide when factoring in all of the people who have lived in the past few ten-thousand years.
The more I consider things the more the phrase "we don't live in a vacuum" comes up in my mind. Last night I read the words "hardship is arbitrary" and it brought into focus the concept of things happening randomly to people vs. God punishing/blessing whomever and whatever time God deems it necessary. The truth is, I don't believe we can discern the difference, and unless we just happen to believe in one or the other we can't endorse either of them or really tell the difference.
A lot of things "seem" arbitrary in this world and if people want to believe that God's will/plan is behind them then that's okay with me. Personally, I'm perfectly content being agnostic about this particular area of the universe - I prefer not to conflict with anything on the argument of God being "active" vs. God being "passive" (otherwise known as the Free Will vs. Predestination argument) which my friends and I have also deemed the "Live Action" debate. This touches
directly on my thoughts on "prayer" which I will, amazingly, leave out of this diatribe as well.
I firmly endorse the school of thought that people are allowed to believe what they want insofar as it does not interfere with another person's ability to live unless it does so reactively. If that makes me a relativist Christian as well as a skeptic, then I guess that's the mentality that I must use as I go forward in trying to figure "this whole thing" out.
Deep down, I think my biggest problem with the incongruity between relativism and Christianity is that relativism has at least some semblance of equality. It allows for the "true for you" clause and doesn't give a flying crap how radically different someone else's beliefs are. Christianity, on the other hand, makes the inflammatory presumption with a nanny-nanny-boo-boo expression that "your beliefs are inferior because they are not the same as mine." It's all very "wait until your Father comes home, then you'll get what's coming to you." People need to be "saved" because there is something inherently bad and wrong with humanity and the world.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do still call myself a Christian and subscribe well enough to the belief structure to get by while, at the same time, struggling with each concept as it comes up. I rarely get the chance to tackle such things in real-time and usually brood about them long enough that my immaturity can start picking them apart with the age old argument of "that doesn't make sense" without much evidence or logic to back that up. There's nothing particularly awry with my own sense of disagreement; I've gotten used to it by now, as have a lot of the people around me, and it's generally accepted as a quirky yet charming part of my personality. I'm not trying to start fights but I am searching for continuity and some semblance of understanding in the world around me where this particular belief structure permeates quite a bit of my culture.
When people campaign against relativism, though, it makes me want to understand why. The basic answer to the "why" question is, of course, because it disagrees with one of the main tenets of the religion of those against relativism: to "make the world Christian" when it very obviously and sometimes forcibly does not want to be. Sometimes, on the world stage, it looks like Christianity is one that teases all of the younger siblings and there's no real authority figure to tell them "leave the world alone."
Maybe I'm being too harsh. I do recognize that Christianity does a lot of good things in the world, helping the poor and hungry of numerous nations and standing for moral values and whatnot, but I'm not sure that completely outweighs the negativity that the "we're right, you're wrong" attitude conveys. I get reminded of this when watching movies like Elizabeth when, in as recently as 1644, British Protestants were being justifiably burned at the stake as heretics for not being Catholic. That's a severe digression; I don't want to be one of those guys that brings up "atrocities committed in the name of God" every time I open my mouth.
I don't discourage religious belief of practice, but I do recommend against a forceful or guilt-laden approach to evangelism that seems to be the recent trend. Church is, and always will be, "church" to some people and this particular concept does not seem to be universally accepted even by the blanketing noun I use when referring to "Christianity." Methodists are different than Covenant churchgoers, Protestants as a whole are different than Catholics, Catholics are different than Eastern Orthodox folks, and on it goes. Christians are different than Muslims, Muslims are different than Jews, Jews are different than Buddhists, Hindus, Tribal peoples worldwide, Native Americans - the list goes on and on. And I'm not just referring to current time, either.
Historically speaking, religious diversity has always been a fact of human life. People branch out as they learn more information and require something that fits them differently than their neighbor. To say, as a Christian, that this is wrong today implies that it has always been wrong, which doesn't fit well with the multitudinous civilizations that existed and thrived before Christianity was "established" in about the fifth century. Yes, I went there. Christianity as we know it is not 2000 years old, more like 1500. It's a small distinction from so much later, but it is important to note that for quite a long time by generational standards Christianity was a very amalgamous thing, not just the sum of various texts sandwiched into a single volume.
I've talked about the Bible before and I undoubtedly will again, so I'm going to spare the book from the focus of this diatribe.
I don't particularly know what it is I'm sick of or whether I'm sick of it more lately than usual. I have thoughts and feelings all the time, of course, and going to either of the particular churches I "frequent" tends to enflame my opinionated side. Maybe "sick of" is too harsh a term for how I feel about things lately; perhaps I just don't have a calm enough outlet for my discontentment with the situation as I see it.
In all honesty, I just get annoyed when someone like President Bush, who I don't see as an authority on much these days (religion most of all, Mister War-on-Terror), jump on the Pope's bandwagon regarding relativism as if he has some kind of clout in that particular realm. The president isn't even Catholic; we haven't had a Catholic president since JFK and America's "Democratic" separation of Church and State makes it difficult to care what particular set of beliefs our political leaders subscribe to.
I guess I really do see things like "justice" and "truth" as relative concepts because I believe so strongly in the individuality of humanity and the universally-sanctioned autonomy of each person's mind. Sure, people can agree on concepts like "justice, truth and God" but that doesn't make those people the same or mean they believe the same things. That seems to grant a foothold to relativism and the crack opens wider when I try to account for some six billion people on the planet just today, becoming Pacific-trench wide when factoring in all of the people who have lived in the past few ten-thousand years.
The more I consider things the more the phrase "we don't live in a vacuum" comes up in my mind. Last night I read the words "hardship is arbitrary" and it brought into focus the concept of things happening randomly to people vs. God punishing/blessing whomever and whatever time God deems it necessary. The truth is, I don't believe we can discern the difference, and unless we just happen to believe in one or the other we can't endorse either of them or really tell the difference.
A lot of things "seem" arbitrary in this world and if people want to believe that God's will/plan is behind them then that's okay with me. Personally, I'm perfectly content being agnostic about this particular area of the universe - I prefer not to conflict with anything on the argument of God being "active" vs. God being "passive" (otherwise known as the Free Will vs. Predestination argument) which my friends and I have also deemed the "Live Action" debate. This touches
directly on my thoughts on "prayer" which I will, amazingly, leave out of this diatribe as well.
I firmly endorse the school of thought that people are allowed to believe what they want insofar as it does not interfere with another person's ability to live unless it does so reactively. If that makes me a relativist Christian as well as a skeptic, then I guess that's the mentality that I must use as I go forward in trying to figure "this whole thing" out.
Labels: free will, relativism, religion, skepticism
posted by Todd Newton at 08:31
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