Thursday, October 3, 2013

Correlation of Relativism and Brain Softening

“You have your truth, I have mine”

The following is an excellent synopsis of the danger of mind weakening relativism.

THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS IDEA by Richard Umbers, Sydney. 
Relativism may be a comfortable creed, but it is intellectually lazy.If taking your dog for a walk is your idea of Sunday worship then Vermont’s Dog Chapel is for you. It has stained glass windows dedicated to various dogs as saints. Pilgrims can attach a photo to the walls of their deceased canine as a memorial of happier times. Here is a place where anyone can wear a collar and believe whatever they want just so long as they don’t believe it too strongly. The vibe of the Chapel is captured on the sign outside: “Welcome all creeds, all breeds, no dogmas allowed.”

Dog Chapel resonates with the warp and woof of our times, even though scepticism greets the truth claims by any church, whether it be Catholic, Protestant or Scientologist. Indeed, the mere attempt to present objective values about life or death, rather than just stating mere facts, is seen as religious fanaticism. It could be an attempt to take control of my thoughts, freedom and wallet, people fear.
Rather than roll over and play dead before authority our society prefers the relativist claim that “you have your truth and I have mine”. Confrontation is avoided by watering down thought and making it so mushy that no one would ever impose his beliefs. But when is a relativist ever wrong? How would one know?
Think of the dolphin music in a secular funeral parlour. It sounds meaningful but it doesn’t pin you down to any specific life view or course of action. Think of Tina Turner’s Buddhism and karma-lite without any of the down-sides of reincarnation (like blaming the congenitally disabled for sins committed in a previous life). If that sounds too mind-bending, you can always squelch me with “well, that’s your opinion”.
Some statements can open up interesting discussions. “That’s your opinion” is not one of them. Anyway, no one really believes in “that’s your opinion”. We all think that female genital mutilation in the Sudan, racism in Arizona, the stoning of women in Iran, or child molestation in Australia’s Northern Territory are wrong however acceptable they may be in the local culture.
Here’s where the wheels really begin to wobble on the cart of relativism. We live in a society in which we are free to go whatever we want but we never find out where we should begin or where we should end up. Our freedom is like a complicated toy without the instruction manual. Pope Benedict XVI, the implacable foe of moral relativism, has often mused that we cannot make the world better unless we know what is good and what is not good for the world. Relativism leads to intellectual complacency and social apathy.
“But that’s just your opinion.” Yes, it is and I’m happy to debate it. The answer, I propose, to the problem of disagreement and differing perspectives is not to weaken thought, not to retreat into indifference and disengagement, but rather to do mental exercise and sharpen our critical thinking capacities.
We should work towards fostering an environment and culture where concern for truth precedes personal comfort. We should be humble about our truth claims but humility means telling the truth. It means saying you are good at something when indeed you are.
We can know the principles of non-contradiction and causality, as well as the concept of the person as a free and intelligent subject. If failures to arrive at the truth have been caused through bias or sloppy thinking, that is no reason to abandon the search for truth. It is reason to redouble our efforts to cultivate the intellectual virtues of fairness and coherence.
Let’s encourage reflection and self-examination. What are my reasons for belief? Do they stand up to rigorous analysis? Our truth claims need to be made without swagger; we need to propose more than impose; but we should not let relativists impose silence upon us. The truth hurts but it also heals.
Not to connect our perspectives with reality is to go delusional. It would be symptomatic of a society that had gone to the dogs.

Copied from MercatorNet, Navigating Modern Complexities

Richard Umbers teaches philosophy in Sydney

Those who buy into the postmodern mantras of relativism might well heed the lesson taught by Alan Sokal.

The narcissistic love affair for poorly understood but high faluting language that apparently gave support to prejudices and presuppositions  among  certain postmodern deconstructionist academics became their undoing. This was ably demonstrated in an article written by Alan Sokal submitted and subsequently published in "Social Text", an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies.


His submission of the article was simply an experiment aimed to make clear what he suspected all along:
"a leading North American journal of cultural studies – whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross – [would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions" The article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", was published in the Social Text spring/summer 1996 "Science Wars" issue. It proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct. At that time, the journal did not practice academic peer review and it did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist.[3][4] On the day of its publication in May 1996, Sokal revealed in Lingua Franca that the article was a hoax, identifying it as "a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense ... structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics] he could find about mathematics and physics."[2]
The hoax sparked a debate about the scholarly merit of humanistic commentary about the physical sciences; the influence of postmodern philosophy on social disciplines in general; academic ethics, including whether Sokal was wrong to deceive the editors and readers of Social Text; and whether Social Text had exercised appropriate intellectual rigor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)
The rising spectre of relativism within the Christian Church is apprehended by the above image. It is no doubt a part of the brain softening process when we are completely oblivious to the fact that the total denial of all absolues (dogma) is itself an absolute. So you don't believe me?

Here is a quote from Christian- Chris Annegarn- in a local paper apologizing on behalf of Christendom for another believer who wrote, expressing concern over terrorism coming to our own part of the world, and recruitment of people from the local population with  Isis/Islamic sympathies. This happened after cartoons were published by the secular paper Charlie Hebdo lampooning Islam, which promptly got 11 of the staff of the paper shot by Muslim extremists.

"As a Christian,  I was apalled to read Alistair Goodland's cynical letter attacking the Islamic religion...
You live in a world God made...of many different faiths...On behalf of Christians all over the world, I offer our Muslim brothers and sisters... a peace -filled and love-laden apology"
Not one word of sympathy was written in respect to the death, terror and destruction wreaked on Paris families and citizens of that democracy. That is apalling to my sensibilities. I don't agree with the desacralizing of any religions or cultures, but none of their efforts warranted that retaliation. But that aside, my point in this quote is to point out the relativism inherent in the worldview of this Christian. And I use the word with some reserve, giving the person the benefit of the doubt, since it flies in the face of so much revealed truth.

We see here, the idea- what is your truth is fine for you and what my truth is, is right for me and we should each have equal respect for our different understanding of reality, since there is no such thing as authoritative, absolute truth or objective fact. God made all religions and therefore they should be treated as equal. 

Say what!

Respect for all people on the basis of creatures made in his image, therefore as equal under one God,  is one thing- respect for all ideas as being equal is utter nonsense. Respecting a person who espouses Islam does not add up to the same thing as putting Islam on an equal footing with Christianity. Christianity stands (or falls) on the supposition that it is objectively true.  We accept Christianity on the basis that it is true, and if true- then Islam cannot be on a par with the claims of Christianity as the one true faith . Muslims, who are not nearly as influenced by relativistic philosophies from the West understand this, and they hold no such pretension to there being different faiths which "all lead to the same God", or that the law of non contradiction does not exist. They will brook no opposition from rival religions competing for the title of one true faith.

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.…" Ephesians 4:4-6