I was advising a friend on Facebook when another friend commented that morality is subjective. It highlights a problem in our society. People don’t believe in objective standards. Truth is relative. Morality is gray and you make your own up. It’s actually not a new thought.
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” Judges 17: 6 and Judge 21: 25
The book of Judges is a very dark book. Those with any character were rife with faults and still stood head and shoulders over those around them. Gideon was a coward, Samson was devious and loved the hookers, and one guy from the priest class gave his concubine to be gang raped to death to save his own neck. Before that, his host tried to give them his virgin daughter to save themselves.
It’s illogical to think truth is relative. “There is no truth” is defeated by asking if that’s a true statement. Yes, and they defeated their point. No, and their point has no basis. I don’t know and we have a conversation.
As for morality? We argue daily about the value of life. To even have a grey area, there has to be black and white. There actually is an objective standard.
- We cannot say anything is bad without something good to compare it to.
- J. Warner Wallace said add ‘for the fun of it’ to cut right through the gray area. “I ran them off the road for the fun of it.”
- Jonathon Morrow from Think Christianly said ask this simple question: “Are you really saying that there is no moral difference between Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler?” in the context of the conversation I linked to.
Relativism is intellectually lazy. Yes, we are taking in tons of information. We still have to make a decision though, not just deciding ‘it’s all true.’ Critical thinking is required or else we risk becoming so open minded our brains fall out or we believe nothing, which leads to close-mindedness.
Relativistic morality makes it impossible to legitimately stand for anything. There would be no justice. MLK Jr. would be just another guy with an opinion. Why should the majority change for the minority in that case?
Here is the acid test for people actually believing in an objective standard. Try to take all their rights and property, or tell them to do something they disagree with. Eventually you’ll find that things aren’t so gray for them after all.
Thoughts?
A Ronin's Journey 
