relativism...

I had a teacher in high school who had a very relativist view of religion which I feel is foolish. I did then and I still do now. He said that when it came to religion he didn't feel that anyone could really say that someone else is wrong. Pretty much he didn't want to hear about religion in class, funny thing is that he made us read a book that was set out to cause us to question our religion. Funny that I never did anything for that class.

I had kind of pushed this whole situation back in my mind until we started talking about all of it in Basic Reasoning this week. Relativism can more or less be summed up in the idea of "what is true for you is not necessarily true for me." Pretty much that there is no real universal truth. For some odd reason I was the only person in my class to say that I thought it was completely bogus. One other person, that actually spoke up, agreed with me, except for on defining/measuring beauty.

There are a lot of flaws to relativism, I can tell you them if you wish, but that's not the direction that I am going with this. To have a relative view on religion is a cop out. That's not wanting to make a choice. It's laziness. I don't believe you can read the Bible with an open mind without it changing your life. Not everyone's set of beliefs can work together if they contradict each other. Atheism states that there is no divine being who rules over all creation. Christianity says there is. One of them has to be wrong. Christianity states that Jesus Christ is the only way to get to heaven, Oprah, and Universalism, thinks there are many wants to get to heaven. One of them has to be wrong. Islam's view of Christ is that he was never crucified, nor did he raise from the dead; Christianity, and dare I say history disagree with this. One of them must be wrong.

It has become way to easy to just end conversations stating that it's relative. It's not. I dare to say that because there is a God, that there is also right answers. Even better, I dare to say, and fully know, that he is the beginning of this right answer.