Let’s put it this way. If you tell me you do not believe in God and then say to me that I should brake for animals, or pay women equally, or help the poor, on what basis are you making such an appeal? If no standard for objective truth, law, wisdom, justice, charity, kindness, compassion and fidelity exists in the universe, then what you are asking me to accept is an idea that has taken hold in your head but that has all of the moral compulsion of a bowl of cereal. You are a sentimentalist, trying to persuade me to a point of view based on your feelings about the subject and not rooted in the fear of God or some other unchanging earthly standard.
The mayor of New Paltz, N.Y., Jason West, recently performed same-sex “marriages,” saying it is the “moral” thing to do. Moral? According to whom? If only according to Mayor West, he is practicing moral relativism, not objective morality.
Thomas Jefferson did not speak of rights being endowed by the courts or vigilante mayors and judges who take the law into their own hands like a lynch mob in frontier America. He knew that for certain rights to have meaning, they must come from outside the reach of man. He also knew that in order to protect institutions essential to the preservation of the constitutional republic, it was necessary to create a system that would control human urges and appetites.
The idea of marriage did not originate in San Francisco or Massachusetts or even with the Founders. Like it or not, it came from the book of Genesis, where, after the fall of man, God said, “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Homosexuals may become “one flesh” in their own eyes but not in a biblical sense, no matter how many Scriptural heretics with degrees from seminaries that are mostly schools of unbelief are trotted out.
Cross-referenced at Ludichris
I think your understanding of the term moral relativism is different to mine. Jason West is stating his moral position on the subject - i.e. that it is moral to allow gay marriage - and as far as I know he has not related it to anything except it's diametric opposition - i.e. that it is not moral to allow gay marriage. That isn't moral relativism, he hasn't said something like "we allow african-americans to get married so we should allow gay people to get married". I mean, he wouldn't say that (you'd have to be an idiot) but that would be moral relativism. What he is effectively saying is that we should allow everyone to be able to marry. That is a moral absolute, pretty clear I think.
The idea of marriage is much older than the bible. Check up on your ancient Greek, Egyptian, Hindu and Jewish history at least, if not your Chinese, Mayan, American-Indian, Maori, Australian Aboriginal or other. Marriage was created to manage the passing of power and property from one generation to the next. Procreation was key to the creation of new generations, but it was commonplace to use adoption when that wasn't possible. Either way, gay people have the choice to procreate if they like. There are gay couples with children, children that were naturally conceived to loving and caring parents (sometimes two mothers and one father, sometimes two fathers and one mother). These children enjoy all the benefits of a strong family unit and the support of their parents communities be they gay or otherwise. It may interest you to know that they don't neccesarily end up gay either.
Posted by: Really not gay, really. at May 24, 2004 04:19 AM
Christianity and Alcoholism
The older I get, the more Christianity appears to be a mental disorder akin to alcoholism. Both lure someone away from their self-pity and offer false hope. Alcohol offers intoxication; Christianity offers salvation. Both take up so much thought and time that they actually prohibit someone from solving their real problems.
Shame on Morality and Religions for duping people into thinking their errors are the result of being born bad, in a "sinful state." What a lie. The people that made it up, the founders of Christianity, may well have been born that way; they may well have needed to constantly surveil themselves for fear of their desires to hurt people.
However, many people - especially millions of women and natives that were massacred by the Christians - were, and are not born bad and do not live in a sinful state.
Christianity cannot be saved from its history of violence. Millions and millions have died at its hands. And today, most all Christians that seem remotely rational play the role of apologists and insist that the Christianity of the ages got it wrong, just as the drunks tell us that they don't have a problem.
Posted by: ollie at July 8, 2004 01:38 PM