Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

SHOULD AMAZON TRIBES BE ALLOWED TO KILL THEIR OWN CHILDREN?

Short version -- Deadly Cultural Relativism: Leftists Oppose Laws Protecting Indigenous Children From Being Murdered

Full version below:

(Right:  photo of Marcia and Edson Suzuki with their adopted daughter Hakani.  See story below)

John Daniel Davidson writes in The Federalist: [my bolding]

A post at Get Religion caught my eye yesterday with the title, “Should Amazon tribes be allowed to kill their young? Foreign Policy editors aren’t sure.” It linked to a story in Foreign Policy magazine from April 9 about a handful of indigenous tribes in Brazil that engage in the ritual killing of infants and children—namely, those with a disability, twins, and the children of single mothers, all of whom are considered to be a bad omen—and the legal efforts underway to end the practice.

One would think that the answer to the question posed by the subtitle to the Foreign Policy article—“Should Brazil keep its Amazon tribes from taking the lives of their children?”—would be a resounding, “Yes.” Surely no one would argue these tribes have a right to kill unwanted children. Surely even the most committed multiculturalist would not condone such barbarity. Right?

But to assume that would be to underestimate the force of cultural relativism on the Left. If our friends on the Left encountered, in the present day and in real life, the ritual human sacrifices of the Aztecs or the fires of the Canaanite god Moloch, more than a few would insist that we not pass judgement on these indigenous cultural practices, and would probably denounce those who tried to do so as racists and imperialists.

GREG KOUKL - SEVEN THINGS YOU CAN'T DO AS A MORAL RELATIVIST

From Salvo Magazine:

So you’ve decided to become a moral relativist. Good for you! What could be better than doing whatever feels right? What could be worse than letting someone tell you what you should and shouldn’t do? Plus, it’s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave everyone else alone and demand that they do the same for you, and you’ll never have to worry again about whether your actions are right or wrong. In fact, there are really only seven things that you can’t do as a moral relativist. Simply follow the rules below, and you’ll be free from absolutes forever!

Rule #1: Relativists Can’t Accuse Others of Wrong-Doing
Relativism makes it impossible to criticize the behavior of others, because relativism ultimately denies that there is such a thing as wrong- doing. In other words, if you believe that morality is a matter of personal definition, then you can’t ever again judge the actions of others. Relativists can’t even object on moral grounds to racism. After all, what sense can be made of the judgment “apartheid is wrong” when spoken by someone who doesn’t believe in right and wrong? What justification is there to intervene? Certainly not human rights, for there are no such things as rights. Relativism is the ultimate pro-choice position because it accepts every personal choice—even the choice to be racist.

Rule #2: Relativists Can’t Complain About the Problem of Evil
The reality of evil in the world is one of the primary objections raised against the existence of God. The argument goes that if God were absolutely powerful and ultimately good, then he would take care of evil. But since evil exists, one of three possible scenarios has to be true: God is too weak to oppose evil, God is too sinister to care about evil, or God simply doesn’t exist. Of course, to advance any one of these arguments means that you also have to believe in evil, which relativists can’t do. In fact, nothing can be called evil—not even the Holocaust—because to do so would be to affirm some sort of moral standard.

. . . more

So you’ve decided to become a moral relativist. Good for you! What could be better than doing whatever feels right? What could be worse than letting someone tell you what you should and shouldn’t do? Plus, it’s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave everyone else alone and demand that they do the same for you, and you’ll never have to worry again about whether your actions are right or wrong. In fact, there are really only seven things that you can’t do as a moral relativist. Simply follow the rules below, and you’ll be free from absolutes forever! - See more at: http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo1/koukl.php#sthash.pYrOe8Un.dpuf

So you’ve decided to become a moral relativist. Good for you! What could be better than doing whatever feels right? What could be worse than letting someone tell you what you should and shouldn’t do? Plus, it’s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave everyone else alone and demand that they do the same for you, and you’ll never have to worry again about whether your actions are right or wrong. In fact, there are really only seven things that you can’t do as a moral relativist. Simply follow the rules below, and you’ll be free from absolutes forever!

---

Rule #1: Relativists Can’t Accuse Others of Wrong-Doing

Relativism makes it impossible to criticize the behavior of others, because relativism ultimately denies that there is such a thing as wrong- doing. In other words, if you believe that morality is a matter of personal definition, then you can’t ever again judge the actions of others. Relativists can’t even object on moral grounds to racism. After all, what sense can be made of the judgment “apartheid is wrong” when spoken by someone who doesn’t believe in right and wrong? What justification is there to intervene? Certainly not human rights, for there are no such things as rights. Relativism is the ultimate pro-choice position because it accepts every personal choice—even the choice to be racist.

---

Rule #2: Relativists Can’t Complain About the Problem of Evil

The reality of evil in the world is one of the primary objections raised against the existence of God. The argument goes that if God were absolutely powerful and ultimately good, then he would take care of evil. But since evil exists, one of three possible scenarios has to be true: God is too weak to oppose evil, God is too sinister to care about evil, or God simply doesn’t exist. Of course, to advance any one of these arguments means that you also have to believe in evil, which relativists can’t do. In fact, nothing can be called evil—not even the Holocaust—because to do so would be to affirm some sort of moral standard.

- See more at: http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo1/koukl.php#sthash.pYrOe8Un.dpuf

So you’ve decided to become a moral relativist. Good for you! What could be better than doing whatever feels right? What could be worse than letting someone tell you what you should and shouldn’t do? Plus, it’s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave everyone else alone and demand that they do the same for you, and you’ll never have to worry again about whether your actions are right or wrong. In fact, there are really only seven things that you can’t do as a moral relativist. Simply follow the rules below, and you’ll be free from absolutes forever!

---

Rule #1: Relativists Can’t Accuse Others of Wrong-Doing

Relativism makes it impossible to criticize the behavior of others, because relativism ultimately denies that there is such a thing as wrong- doing. In other words, if you believe that morality is a matter of personal definition, then you can’t ever again judge the actions of others. Relativists can’t even object on moral grounds to racism. After all, what sense can be made of the judgment “apartheid is wrong” when spoken by someone who doesn’t believe in right and wrong? What justification is there to intervene? Certainly not human rights, for there are no such things as rights. Relativism is the ultimate pro-choice position because it accepts every personal choice—even the choice to be racist.

---

Rule #2: Relativists Can’t Complain About the Problem of Evil

The reality of evil in the world is one of the primary objections raised against the existence of God. The argument goes that if God were absolutely powerful and ultimately good, then he would take care of evil. But since evil exists, one of three possible scenarios has to be true: God is too weak to oppose evil, God is too sinister to care about evil, or God simply doesn’t exist. Of course, to advance any one of these arguments means that you also have to believe in evil, which relativists can’t do. In fact, nothing can be called evil—not even the Holocaust—because to do so would be to affirm some sort of moral standard.

- See more at: http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo1/koukl.php#sthash.pYrOe8Un.dpuf

MORAL RELATIVISM AND EDUCATION: ARE WE PRODUCING ETHICAL PARALYTICS?

I continue getting to back issues of Breakpoint that have been lying in my "in-box" far too long.  This one came out January 11, 2012.  It's importance can hardly be overstated.  We weeps for this culture. Colson wrote:

For years, I’ve been warning you about the dangers of relativism and what happens when society abandons a Christian worldview. Now I’d like to show you.

Dr. Stephen Anderson teaches philosophy at A.B. Lucas Secondary School in Ontario, Canada. His students had just finished a unit on metaphysics and were about to start one on ethics.

To jump start the discussion and to “form a baseline from which they could begin to ask questions about the legitimacy of moral judgments of all kinds,” Anderson shared with them a gruesome photo of Bibi Aisha, a teenage wife of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. When Bibi tried to get away from her abusive husband, her family caught her, cut off her nose and ears, and left her to die in the mountains. Only Bibi didn’t die. Somehow she crawled to her grandfather’s house, and was saved in an American hospital.

Writing in Education Journal magazine, Anderson relates how he was sure that his students, “seeing the suffering of this poor girl of their own age, [they] would have a clear ethical reaction,” one they could talk about “more difficult cases.”

But their response shocked Anderson. “[He] expected strong aversion [to it], … but that’s not what I got. Instead, they became confused . . . afraid to make any moral judgment at all. They were unwilling to criticize,” as he said, “any situation originating in a different culture. They said, ‘Well, we might not like it, but maybe over there it’s okay.’”

Anderson calls their confusion and refusal to judge such child mutilation a moment of startling clarity, and indeed it is. He wonders if it stems not from too little education, but from too much multiculturalism and so-called “values education,” which is really just an excuse for moral relativism.

JOHN VENNARI - "WHAT OBAMA LEARNED FROM ALINSKY"

I'm grateful to a friend for passing along Vennari's important article.  (HT: bs)  I haven't read Saul D. Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," but see the need to do so.  If Alinsky advocated a radical relativism and amorality in furthering political goals as stated below, we have all the more reason to fear the current occupant of the White House since he is regarded as Alinsky's disciple.  Vennari writes:

Obama was a student of the ruthless tactics of Saul Alinsky, the left-wing agitator whose landmark Rules for Radicals was dedicated to the devil.[9] Mike Kruglik, Obama’s Chicago instructor in Alinsky methods, said Obama was the best student of Alinsky tactics he ever had.[10]

David Alinsky, Saul Alinsky’s son, applauded Obama’s successful implementation of Alinsky methods. Immediately after Obama’s acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, David Alinsky wrote a letter to the Boston Globe in full praise of Obama as one who learned well his father’s methods.[11]

Even Obama zealot Chris Matthews, in a December 2010 broadcast of “Hardball”, referred to Obama as “the guy who comes from Saul Alinsky”.[12]

As is stated in his Rules for Radicals, Alinsky’s foundational principles are:

1) There is no such thing as dogma, all truth is relative: “For the organizer, everything is relative and changing,” said Alinsky. The organizer “does not have any fixed truth.” This places the organizer in a superior position, Alinsky insisted, because he is “free from the shackles of dogma.”[13]

2) There is no such thing as a fixed rule of ethics. For Alinksy, the end justifies the means, and all ethics are elastic according to the situation you are in or the strategy you need to employ. Alinsky taught, “Ethical standards must be elastic to stretch with the times.”[14] If you need to lie, you lie. If you need to make promises you know you won’t keep, you do it anyway.

3) Corruption in the leader is a kind of virtue: “To say that a corrupt means corrupts the ends is to believe in the Immaculate Conception of ends and principle”, Alinksy blasphemously asserted. “The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process. He who fears corruption, fears life.” Alinsky castigates the leader who places his personal conscience and personal salvation above the needs of the people, claiming that such a leader “does not care enough for the people to be corrupted for them”.[15]

This is the school in which Barack Obama was formed: no dogma; no objective truth; no fixed standards of ethics; the end justifies the means; and corruption in the leader is raised to the level of virtue.

How can anyone believe anything Obama says? There is no fixed standard of ethics preventing him from lying to achieve whatever aims he deems fit.

As a student of Alinksy (as is Hillary Clinton), [16] Obama will think nothing of stamping out those who stand in the way of his Party’s agenda. In his 1946 Reveille for Radicals: Alinsky wrote that if the radicals become stronger than the opposition, they must “crush the opposition”.[17]

Congressman Chris Smith and Tulsa’s Bishop Slattery appear aware of Obama’s aim to “crush the opposition”. As noted, Smith warned that Obama’s pro-abortion directives are designed so that “religious hospitals will be squeezed out.” Bishop Slattery observed the new mandate may end up “closing down every Catholic school, hospital and the other public ministries of the Church, which is perhaps their underlying intention.”

It is futile appealing the Constitution to Obama, since he publicly expresses support for its effective revision.

In a 2001 radio interview, Obama argued that the Warren Court, which started a long line of activist decisions in a number of areas, did not go far enough:

1) it failed to bring about “redistributive change” and a “redistribution of wealth”;

2) it failed to, in Obama’s words, “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution”[18]

In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama had this to say:

“Ultimately, I have to side with Justice Breyer’s view of the Constitution – that it is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of the ever-changing world.”[19]

Obama belongs to the clique of doctrinal liberals whose basic tenet is, “the only law of the land should be what we say it is at the moment,” which is a formula for State Absolutism. . . .

Read the whole thing.  These facts should raise the fear factor of every freedom-loving America.

WORLDVIEW TRAINING - SUMMIT MINISTRIES

Teenagers need assistance in clear thinking.  Thankfully, a number of worldview programs are now available.  Charles Colson introduces one such program -- Summit Ministries -- with his helpful post:

A few years ago, a teenager named Chris attended a worldview training program run by Summit Ministries. He learned a great deal and had a great time. But by the end of the intensive, two-week program, he was exhausted.

As Chris wrote to John Stonestreet, executive director of Summit, “I had never had to think so hard...before in my life! So I decided I was just going to veg out for the next few days.”

When some friends invited Chris to a movie, he thought it would be a good way to relax and recover from all that hard thinking. They went to see the latest version of War of the Worlds.

But the film wasn’t the mental vacation Chris expected it to be. As he explained in his letter, “Mr. Stonestreet, I tried to veg out during the movie, but I just couldn’t. I am watching it and thinking, ‘Wait a minute, that’s secular humanism, and wait a minute, that’s not true. And, what do they mean by that, and how do they know that’s true!’”

Chris then joked, “I just wanted you to know that you ruined my movie!”

After the film ended, Chris and his friends went out for food and talked about the themes in the movie. His friends were astonished at how much Chris had gotten out of the film. As he told Stonestreet, “They kept asking me, ‘How did you see that? How do you know all that stuff?’ It was a great conversation. And I [learned] I can’t just turn this worldview thing off!”

Good! What a wonderful testimony to the power of worldview training. It’s the kind of training all young people need to undergo, but so often don’t.  (more . . .)

RECENT POSTS FROM DENVER SEMINARY PROFESSOR DOUGLAS GROOTHUIS (A.K.A. "THE CONSTRUCTIVE CURMUDGEON")

-- Groothuis, as many readers know, first achieved name recognition for being one of the first out of the gate evaluating the New Age movement.  He did so with sober, reliable, scholarly, yet readable treatments in such books as  Unmasking the New Age, Confronting the New Age and Jesus in an Age of Controversy, plus his little InterVarsity booklet, Are All Religions One?

A couple of days ago he posted the entirety of his article, "The New Age Jesus," which first appeared in Areopagus Journal (Nov-Dec 2004).   The article comes with footnotes, making it all the more useful.

-- On another post, Groothuis introduces Ian R. Colle (one of Groothuis' students) who published a positive, helpful, substantial (therefore worth reading!) review of  Paul A. Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. vii + 139 pages, $19.95 paper.   Colle's concludes his review:

Boghossian presents the constructivist/relativist views accurately and fairly and defeats the strongest formulation of their supporting arguments in a way that is easy to follow and understandable to the non-technical reader.  This short book should be required reading for all humanities professors and all who care about presenting sound arguments for a realist epistemology.   Read the entire review.

Pro-Life University-Level Article

At least that's what I think of this contribution by Scott Klusendorf

Michael Gerson on Roman Catholicism's Importance to the Modern World

Michael Gerson writes wisely about what he calls "The Indispensable Church."  After acknowledging embarrassing historical improprieties associated with the Vatican, he says the Catholic Church remains an indispensable institution for several reasons (my underlining):

First, despite charges of dogmatism, the church is the main defender of reason in the modern world. It teaches the possibility that moral truth can be known through reflection and argument. It criticizes what Pope Benedict XVI has called the "dictatorship of relativism" -- a belief "that does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." "Being an adult," says Benedict, "means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties."

Secularism has traditionally taught that human beings will eventually outgrow religious

TIM KELLER (PART I): BLIND MEN TRYING TO DESCRIBE AN ELEPHANT

Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York, does a good job deconstructing the "elephant" analogy that people commonly use to argue the relativism of all religions.   Tim Keller explains:

Pluralists contend that no one religion can know the fullness of spiritual truth, therefore all religions are valid.  But while it si good to acknowledge our limitations, this statement is itself a strong assertion about the nature of spiritual truth.  A common analogy is cited--the blind men trying to describe an elephant.  One feels the tail and reports that an elephant is thin and flexible.  Anoher feel a leg and claims the animal is