Relatively Speaking

The term "relativism" gets thrown around too much these days. In the days following the election, relativism, as it relates to "values," was blamed for the liberals' loss. I think that's what some of them would like to think, but I, for one, don't buy it. This election was about security and terrorism and not much more. Generally speaking we mean relativism to describe the lack of any absolute truth in reality. To generalize even more, I mean it to describe a large number of Americans who's grandparents believed in God and had a very clear notion of right and wrong, but they no longer do. Scientism and pantheism have crept into the psyche of modern Americans and Truth has become a quaint idea that only unenlightened folks hold on to. If your Grandmother believes the Bible is Truth, well that's fine, she's old and they didn't know any better in her day. Today, we know things that they didn't know back then; right? Yes, that's right; we "know" things now. Like the fact that there is no absolute truth. But wait, are we absolutely sure there's no absolutes?As the great philosopher Moe Howard once said, "Only fools are positive." The key out of this semantic mess is to state the quite rational argument that there exists this absolute Truth outside of us. It is not us; it is not of us; it is not in us. It exists with or without us. It is reasonable to conclude that we cannot fully grasp it. Herein lies a chasm between modern man and reason: modern man always says, "we cannot grasp it...yet." But history, myth, poetry and reason all say, "we cannot grasp it."

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