Nihilism or the Nazarene

CS Lewis made a chilling observation:

If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family – anything you like – at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrast weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.

A good example of this is the movie culture. It has become extremely banal. If you have the stomach, walk down the aisles of the "New Releases" at the movie rental place. We come to expect the sexual aspect--and that's bad enough--but many of these new movies are engaging in horror and gore that is unthinkable.

It is "Fight Club" versus "Narnia." Fight Club is the paramount movie of the postmodern age. There is no meaning--only brutality.

It is as Carl Henry said, "We will either have Nihilism or the Nazarene."

More apologetics in action

Scroll down to reply # 18. My handle is Liberalism's Worst Nightmare. This was a lot of fun.

Fictional dialogues with a sceptic

This is for an assignment, and I am having fun with it. Carl is a reference to the great Carl F H Henry. Madeline is a reference to Madeline Murray O'Hare.

Morality of Knowledge (Epistemology)

Carl: I will hold that unless you maintain biblical revelation, you have no foundation for knowledge or ethics.
Madeline: I have problems with that statement.
Carl: I gathered as much. Go on.
Madeline: For one, you begged the question. Two, unbelievers do have knowledge and live ethically, and three, you Christians don’t live up to that statement.
Carl: I agree with you on all three points.
Madeline: What?
Carl: Your objections just proved my point.
Madeline: How?
Carl: Our time tonight is short. Can I just focus on the knowledge statement?
Madeline: Sure.

Carl: I will open tonight with a discussion on epistemology: the theory of knowledge.
Madeline: That sounds rather abstract.
Carl: Stay with me—whatever we say later on will be determined by what we establish or fail to establish at this point.
Madeline: Ok, fine. What are you getting at?
Carl: In short—and I know you will have objections to this—I believe in God and his word based on a higher authority than myself.
Madeline: Oh, let me guess—you believe in the Bible because God says so?
Carl: It’s a bit more than that. Before I answer your question—and I will give you an opportunity to cross-examine me, can I ask you a few questions as well?
Madeline: Ok, I’ll bite.
Carl: We all have ultimate authorities—
Madeline: Wait, you mean absolutes! I don’—
Carl: Just let me finish. That’s not what I am getting at, although we will discuss that later. I will ask you a question: What is your authority?
Madeline: I don’t have any authorities. I am free, independent.
Carl: What do you believe in, then? If not God, then what?
Madeline: I believe in reason; I believe that people should be free to live how they want as long as it doesn’t hurt others.
Carl: That’s a good, clear answer. Your answer actually demonstrated your worldview.
Madeline: There goes that religious jargon again.
Carl: No, I was giving you a compliment. Few people can state their worldview so clearly and succinctly.
Madeline: So you think I am right?
Carl: No, you have a naïve epistemology and your ethical system avoids the hard questions.
Madeline: So now you will engage in name-calling?
Carl: No, that’s not my point.
Madeline: Can we get back to your original discussion? You were going to tell me how “I believe the bible because the bible tells me so” isn’t question-begging.

Baby apologetics in action

I love debating liberals. Atheists are clever. Mormons and Catholics are slippery because they have competing revelation-claims. Liberals just don't know what to say.

My username: Liberalism's Worst Nightmare

See here:

Refutation of Moral Relativism: Dialogues with an Absolutist

This book is typical Peter Kreeft: it couldn't be boring if it tried. The book gives ten or so arguments, for and against, moral relativism. The moral absolutist is played by a Muslim. The relativist by a liberal feminist.

THE ARGUMENTS
Ben Isa argues that relativism is the most serious crisis to civilisation. He documents from history that all civilizations have presupposed some absolute moral code. Any civilization that operated on relativism, he argues, commits suicide.

The key arguments, that I have found most persuasive:
1) relativism has an absolutist premise in it: it argues that it is *good* to be relativist and *bad* to be absolutist. These are normative, absolutist judgments which are not consistent with the relativist claim.

2) The notion of progress demands an absolutist standard. If there is no absolute standard, and values are relative, how can a society make progress? To what is it progressing?

3) If relativism is true, then we must condemn men like Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, and abolitionists--people who are usually championed by relativists (I would have chosen different examples, but that's beside the point). They are known as cultural prophets, calling the evils of a society to account. But do you see the problem? If a society is the source and norm for values, and a society determines what is right and wrong (like slavery and the oppression of women), then who is the prophet to blame them? All of the cultural prophets have assumed a moral law to which society must be judged. This moral law, obviously, is absolutist.

4) Kreeft's arguments from the history of philosophy were quite impressive.

EVALUATION
Pros: the book was extremely well-written. It was very insightful and covered the standard arguments used in the debates. Some pages were so good one had to stand and applaud.

Cons: his choice of a Muslim will no doubt bother some readers. I, personally, would have chosen a different hero. True, Islamic morals are absolute, but if consistent, they look a lot different than biblical revelation. 2) Kreeft sold the farm on evolution. He masterfully refuted it and then in the next paragraph affirmed it. I know what he is getting at but this is a poor way to phrase it.

I recommend this book.