May 25, 2004

Well, It Looks Like I Came Back at The Right Time
Everett

Well, after another hiatus of several months, I've once again decide to show my face again in the Forum, bringing controversy with me, as always, or at least when the discussions revolve around God and politics.

I'd like to start off by asking What's wrong with being anti-feminist, as distinct from being ist? In other words, what's wrong with believing that fundamental biological differences between men and women exist on the physical, physiological and psychological levels? What's wrong with believing that these differences tend to make men better able to do certain things and women better able to do others? What's wrong with thinking that these distinct abilities lead to the establishment of distinct social roles for men and women, both of which are essential for the stability and survival of a well-ordered society? What's wrong with thinking that men and women are essential partners in the functioning of society, each bringing their own set of unique gifts and abilities as opposed to being interchangeable cogs in a machine?

Now that everyone is suitably enraged at my ad hominem attack on one of the supposed bastions of modern society, I'd like to move on to that other touchy subject: God, or more precisely, religion. Specifically, I'll be addressing the assertions made by speedcorn (I'll try to ignore Pullman for the most part, not because I don't have any answer to him, but because I'm going trying to keep this somewhat brief.).

This is most of the introductory paragraph from your last post:

"As I mentioned in my previous post the story focuses on two children. These children in today's society would probably be considered 'bad' kids because they don't follow rules, don't do as they're told, and most importantly, do what they feel is right rather than what others tell them is right. The parallels to the Church are obvious. For centuries organized religions have told people how to live and how to think. In many cases (but not all) the consequences have been disastrous with countless lives destroyed because they didn't fit with the church's (or with its follower's) idea of what was right."

I am assuming that you hold to the principles, both stated and implied, in the above paragraph.

What you seem to be advocating here, by contrasting the behavior of the children-which you seem to advocate strongly-with the actions of the Church, is moral relativism: whether an action is right or wrong is determined by how one feels about it. The problem with this should be glaringly obvious: If there is no objective determiner of right and wrong, anything is permissable. For instance, let's assume you and I have been having an argument, and during the course of this argument, you insult me. Let's further assume that I am angered by this insult to the point that I feel that it would be right of me to exact retribution in the form of physical retaliation up to the point of actually you. Obviously, you would feel that this is wrong, but why should this matter to me if my feelings, not yours, determine what is right for me?

What makes this even more interesting you don't completely reject objective right and wrong while advocating this moral relativism because you quite clearly condemn the idea of the Church (and religions in general) telling people "how to live and how to think", despite the fact that the religious authorities guilty of perpetrating such a heinous act undoubtedly felt they were doing the right thing. In other words, you're advocating "moral relativism for me but not for thee."

Given that you still seem to hold a belief in some degree of objective morality, my next conclusion should seem painfully obvious. An institution that has spent nearly 2,000 years discerning fundamental tenets of both faith and morality is far more relaible in its discernment of right and wrong than any one man because it is the cumulative work of many minds over a great period of time and is constantly able to bring there resources to bear to scrutinize and refine its positions, admitting those things that bear fruit and discarding those that do not. It also follows that certain practices are demonstrably antithetical to the tenets laid down by said institutions and are therefore able to be confidently declared anathema. However, it is the duty of the individual who chooses to submit himself to the authority of the institution, in light of these principles, to discern what is his duty given his particular circumstances. Simply put, pricipled pragmatism is the order of the day.

The position I have set forth above is the relatonship between Church and man in proper balance. It is a balance difficult to achieve, and it is indeed often not achieved, though too often the imbalance tilts not in favoir of the Church, but in favor of the individual. Certainly, when the Church overstpes its place, it is more noticeable for obvious reasons, but it is more often the case that the individual oversteps his place because it is easier for him to do so without notice.

Really, what you should be decrying is the over-involvement of the Institutional Church in the affairs of State. This increases the Church's power overmuch and attracts those who seek temporal power and are unscrupulous in how they acquire it. This is not to say that there are no unscrupulous Churchmen (see the child-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church in the US or the Vatican Bank scandal). Human nature being what it is, a number of unsavory characters are bound to gain position within any institution with a human component. All that can be hoped for is that their influence is limited and they can be rooted out before doing too much damage.

What you advocate is the opposite problem, which is understandable. When cognitive dissonance arises, it is typical for people to move too far in the opposite direction in an attempt to resolve it. Here, authority is abused, and your solution appears to be to eliminate it as opposeds to restoring the the authority to its proper place and punishing the the individuals responsible for the abuse.