{"id":3072,"date":"2008-11-10T15:48:34","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T20:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=3072"},"modified":"2008-11-10T22:14:45","modified_gmt":"2008-11-11T03:14:45","slug":"seven-things-you-can%e2%80%99t-do-as-a-moral-relativist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/seven-things-you-can%e2%80%99t-do-as-a-moral-relativist\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Things You Can\u2019t Do as a Moral Relativist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salvo Magazine<\/a> | Greg Koukl | Nov. 10, 2008<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve 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\u2019t do? Plus, it\u2019s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave everyone else alone and demand that they do the same for you, and you\u2019ll never have to worry again about whether your actions are right or wrong. In fact, there are really only seven things that you can\u2019t do as a moral relativist. Simply follow the rules below, and you\u2019ll be free from absolutes forever! <\/p>\n

Rule #1: Relativists Can\u2019t Accuse Others of Wrong-Doing <\/strong>
\nRelativism 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\u2019t ever again judge the actions of others. Relativists can\u2019t even object on moral grounds to racism. After all, what sense can be made of the judgment \u201capartheid is wrong\u201d when spoken by someone who doesn\u2019t 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\u2014even the choice to be racist. <\/p>\n

Rule #2: Relativists Can\u2019t Complain About the Problem of Evil <\/strong>
\nThe 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\u2019t exist. Of course, to advance any one of these arguments means that you also have to believe in evil, which relativists can\u2019t do. In fact, nothing can be called evil\u2014not even the Holocaust\u2014because to do so would be to affirm some sort of moral standard.<\/p>\n

. . . more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salvo Magazine | Greg Koukl | Nov. 10, 2008 So you\u2019ve 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\u2019t do? Plus, it\u2019s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[68,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-moral-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}