Re: ICR and its slurs

Russell Stewart (diamond@rt66.com)
Tue, 03 Jun 1997 08:49:34 -0600

Bill Hamilton wrote:
>I've been thinking about this discussion a lot lately, and I've come to
>realize a few things. First, from a Christian's point of view, morality is
>objective, because he sees morality as defined by God. Obviously that
>doesn't work for anyone who is not convinced of the existence of God.
>While one of us is right and the other wrong, there is no way I know of
>establishing _who_ is right. So, we can't establish the objectivity of the
>Christian (or any other) moral system.

Exactly! You put it even better than I did, Bill.

>However, I'm not sure that's all bad.

I never said that it was. I would have to be a serious hypocrite to
decry the subjectivity of Christianity while holding on to my own subjective
system.

>While the Christians in the
>discussion -- many of them -- are asserting that there is an objective
>morality, I doubt any of them would claim that that morality is the most
>important aspect of Christianity. It's the personal relationship with a
>Living God that is most important to most of us, and of course like any
>relationship between persons, _that_ has some very subjective elements.
>Personal relationships are too complex and deeply significant to be
>described with a few objective principles. I know you don't accept the
>reality of God, so probably you will attribute our belief in a personal
>relationship to self-delusion or the like.

I wouldn't be so unkind. First of all, I am not going to make absolute
claims about things that I cannot prove or disprove. The question of God's
existence is such a thing. For all I know, you may be right. And if there
is a God, I can only hope that He judges me for how I lived my life and
whether or not I was true to myself and my nature.

I'm not going to claim that you're deluded. Maybe you are. Maybe *I* am.
I can't know for sure. But as long as you are able to get along in society,
that's all that matters to me.

>But grant for a moment that
>such a relationship can exist. I think you might be willing to admit that
>that sort of relationship could have a more powerful hold on an individual
>than a set of principles.

I don't deny that it can have a powerful hold. However, not believing in
an afterlife, believing that this life is *all we have* and it should be
made to count (and that means for everyone) -- that can be pretty darned
powerful too.

_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
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| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
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If Rush is Right, then I'll take what's Left.