1.Call me Manichean, but I have always found it efficacious to see events, and persons, at the boundaries of extremes. This is especially advantageous in politics. The opposite way of seeing things is often described as ‘moral equivalence,’ or postmodernism.
"The roots of postmodernism can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.
The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties, ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"
"Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."[1] but did not actually coin the term "cultural relativism."
https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/t...elativism.html
2. In terms of religion, the two extremes are the one that fueled Western Civilization and the founding of our nation, and the other extreme, Militant Secularism. The test between the two is their view of human life. Whether personal beliefs, or what we call 'politics,' or perhaps 'religion,' the real idea that determines what we will do in any and every situation, is one simple idea. Either one believes that human lives are sacred, or one believes that they can be exchanged to achieve some secular material goal.
a. From Schindler's List: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”
or
b. Trotsky: "We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life."
Just as the former one, the Judeo-Christian religion, has variations, or denominations, so does Militant Secularism. You know them as the totalitarian forms of political plague, and none have the slightest concern for human life: not communism (gulags), not Nazism (concentration camps), not Liberalism (abortion), not Progressivism (eugenics), not socialism (theft), not fascism (murder).
They only differ in the final outcome: slavery, serfdom, or death.
3. Second on the list of differences between the Judeo-Christian faith, and the Militant Secular faith, is that of peace, harmony, versus chaos, anarchy.
Toward that end, God of the Bible draws distinctions, the very opposite of Boas’ view that all cultures, societies, modes of living, are the same.
By providing examples, opposites, juxtapositions, we are reminded that opposites are not the same: God distinguishes between light and dark, day and night, land and water, and humans and animals; and, God distinguishes between man and God, good and evil, man and woman, the holy and the profane, parent and child, the beautiful and the ugly, and life and death.”
Dennis Prager, “The Rational Bible: Genesis”
The two gifts that God has granted mankind are intelligence and free will.
Once one perceives that there are always extremes, it behoove the intelligent individual to make choices between them.
"The roots of postmodernism can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.
The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties, ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"
"Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."[1] but did not actually coin the term "cultural relativism."
https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/t...elativism.html
2. In terms of religion, the two extremes are the one that fueled Western Civilization and the founding of our nation, and the other extreme, Militant Secularism. The test between the two is their view of human life. Whether personal beliefs, or what we call 'politics,' or perhaps 'religion,' the real idea that determines what we will do in any and every situation, is one simple idea. Either one believes that human lives are sacred, or one believes that they can be exchanged to achieve some secular material goal.
a. From Schindler's List: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”
or
b. Trotsky: "We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life."
Just as the former one, the Judeo-Christian religion, has variations, or denominations, so does Militant Secularism. You know them as the totalitarian forms of political plague, and none have the slightest concern for human life: not communism (gulags), not Nazism (concentration camps), not Liberalism (abortion), not Progressivism (eugenics), not socialism (theft), not fascism (murder).
They only differ in the final outcome: slavery, serfdom, or death.
3. Second on the list of differences between the Judeo-Christian faith, and the Militant Secular faith, is that of peace, harmony, versus chaos, anarchy.
Toward that end, God of the Bible draws distinctions, the very opposite of Boas’ view that all cultures, societies, modes of living, are the same.
By providing examples, opposites, juxtapositions, we are reminded that opposites are not the same: God distinguishes between light and dark, day and night, land and water, and humans and animals; and, God distinguishes between man and God, good and evil, man and woman, the holy and the profane, parent and child, the beautiful and the ugly, and life and death.”
Dennis Prager, “The Rational Bible: Genesis”
The two gifts that God has granted mankind are intelligence and free will.
Once one perceives that there are always extremes, it behoove the intelligent individual to make choices between them.
