Is Relativism Imploding Our Society

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I find it so painful. You can talk with someone who holds a different belief. You can even somehow agree to disagree. But you can’t really with a modern relativist. Belief does not create existence. Boooom! Every argument lies and cries. You operate in two different systems.
 
As a person, I enjoy a society where I do not have to follow any particular religion or moral norms, so that when I do follow, or at least try, I know I do it out of a free choice and neither following a national tradition nor state compulsion. We live in a saecular society and tend to idealise and romanticise the times when religions dominated our lives. Today’s freedom is a fruit of Christianity too, albeit a bit sour yet. Globalisation has been shaping the world according to Western values, though this seems to revert as Islamic world is expanding. The civilisations of the East that have achieved so much in economy have done so through accepting the Western way of thinking.

The world is now more open to Christianity than ever before in that information is available and one’s nation no longer determines one’s faith - 2 conditions perfect for Catholicism with its intellectual appeal and universality (exactly the 2 factors that brought about my conversion). At he same time, as though there is an evangelising constant, as if to balance the openness, the world has become less willing to believe, more sceptical.

Another benefit is that relativistic society is more critical of the Church’s actions. Sometimes it is good to scandalously expose a problem than to hide and feed it. Although I believe that the Church is able to regulate itself, I feel that a merciless eye of a relativistic society can benefit us, spurring us to excellence.

As for relativism in disputes on faith, I think it’s all a mask covering a soul in the dark.

P.S. As a Christian I detest evil, whether legal or illegal.
 
annem said:
Indeed it is, and relativism is one of the most corrosive elements in our toxic culture. The average ten year old can access more pornography than a Roman emperor could have seen in his lifetime, but good luck getting anyone to try and tone down the pornography. And it’s not just pornography that we share with children, we export it to the whole world. Every day, TV broadcasts more bad words, morally dubious situations, violence, and plain sexuality than I can bear to watch.

Within the lifetime of one person, we have gone from a culture that was more or less wholesome to a culture that is drenched in moral relativism. From being a culture that was mostly in favor of marriage to a culture where illegitimacy is edging toward 40% of all children being born. We know that single parenting causes terrible harm–nearly all those people who end up in prison come from single parent home, plus those from single parent homes have greatly reduced chances of a good education. A huge number of children from single parent homes are abused; I believe seven times more than those in two parent homes. Many suffer emotional damage they will carry through their lives.

But hey, it the choice of the mother to live the way she wants, and hey, if the father doesn’t love the mother, he should move one, right?

It is so terrible and so sad and we so urgently need to return to to a culture which believes in truth, not relativism.

God bless, Annem
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True. It seems Relativism is also breeds hate and intolerance of which I have written about on my blog:

Does Relativism cause Hate
The Intolerance of Tolerance

I am seeing his more and more on CAF especially down in the News section.
 
I’ve reached the point at which I simply want to* tell *certain people – in fact, numerous people in my life – quite outrightly, that I’m a *Catholic Christian *and simply can’t do or say the things they expect from me. My supervisor is at the top of the list. He’s a childish gossip-monger who judges people based on their willingness to collaborate with his moral corruption. :mad:
 
To normal people, relativism means something completely different than what the hardcore conservative Catholics posting here mean. The issue here isn’t really relativism at all, but a fundamental misunderstanding between just the normal, run-of-the-mill secular “common person” and the kind of person you meet on this forum.

To Catholics like yourselves, the Church is completely infallible in terms of morality. It *cannot *make a mistake. It’s impossible. Saying that the church is wrong is like 2+2 = 5. Example: Allowing gay adoption? Heck no! The Catholic Church said it’s wrong, so it IS wrong and it’s impossible for it to be any other way. A Catholic should never feel wrong about this fact because the Church said it is - so it is.

To the common person, however, the idea that there is an infallible institution that can never be wrong about an issue of morality is (putting it nicely) ridiculous. To the common person, like me, for example, we have a solid moral compass that directs much of our actions. *However, *we understand that our position on moral issues could change because we understand that we might be wrong about something. And that’s the difference between people like you and people like me. I know I can be wrong about some moral issue - but you reject that as an absolute impossibility.

People like me don’t have a misunderstanding of objective truth. We don’t deny objective truth. We don’t believe in or practice relativism.

However, from your perspective - which assumes that all morality is dictated infallibly from a human institution - I can completely understand why you would think so.
 
Exalt said:
To Catholics like yourselves, the Church is completely infallible in terms of morality. It *cannot *make a mistake. It’s impossible. Saying that the church is wrong is like 2+2 = 5. Example: Allowing gay adoption? Heck no! The Catholic Church said it’s wrong, so it IS wrong and it’s impossible for it to be any other way. A Catholic should never feel wrong about this fact because the Church said it is - so it is.
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The central limit theorem is also ‘infallible’ mathematically. But it can’t help a lot in saying anything certain about a particular object under observation. Infallibility is somehow like that. The Churches general statements on faith and morality are 100% correct, yet the stand on e.g. gay adoption is not itself an exercise of infallibility but follows. It is by form noninfallible, it’s not general enough to be an infallible statement. IMO.
 
Exalt said:
To normal people, relativism means something completely different than what the hardcore conservative Catholics posting here mean. The issue here isn’t really relativism at all, but a fundamental misunderstanding between just the normal, run-of-the-mill secular “common person” and the kind of person you meet on this forum.

To Catholics like yourselves, the Church is completely infallible in terms of morality. It *cannot *make a mistake. It’s impossible. Saying that the church is wrong is like 2+2 = 5. Example: Allowing gay adoption? Heck no! The Catholic Church said it’s wrong, so it IS wrong and it’s impossible for it to be any other way. A Catholic should never feel wrong about this fact because the Church said it is - so it is.

To the common person, however, the idea that there is an infallible institution that can never be wrong about an issue of morality is (putting it nicely) ridiculous. To the common person, like me, for example, we have a solid moral compass that directs much of our actions. *However, *we understand that our position on moral issues could change because we understand that we might be wrong about something. And that’s the difference between people like you and people like me. I know I can be wrong about some moral issue - but you reject that as an absolute impossibility.

People like me don’t have a misunderstanding of objective truth. We don’t deny objective truth. We don’t believe in or practice relativism.

However, from your perspective - which assumes that all morality is dictated infallibly from a human institution - I can completely understand why you would think so.
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The United States government is a human institution. I think you can see what a mess we have made of the great experiment. The Roman Catholic Church is not a human institution, but one that tries very hard to follow the laws of God and life. The laws of the Church began very simply with the Ten Commandments which can be expanded in meaning infinitum. To me, these laws are very logical and whoever does not use logic to follow them sometimes experiences negative logical consequences. Those who have faith in God, even those of a different Christian faith, can see these laws are moral, logical and take in the consideration of the common good of all human kind. Whether one believes with eyes closed, or open, the result is the same. The laws support the common good.
 
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