relativism rant

"You just have to take the Bible with a grain of salt"

"You can't take the Bible literally"

"Well, whatever he likes is fine, but not for me...."

I felt like I was sitting in an philosophy examiner's bubble last night over dinner with a friend. I refuse to be relativistic. Sorry. My society doesn't like that, but seriously, how can we go about life changing the rules for every other man? The funny thing is, this same person told me that he believes that life is very black and white (for him, anyway) and that there weren't shades of gray. Isn't that what relatiivism is? Shades of gray? So if he doesn't see shades, he isn't really relativistic, but he can't admit it because he might offend.

He said he'd talked to a priest about sex before marriage because he was struggling with the idea. The priest...of all people...said, "Well, if you are in a committed relationship, heading for marriage, and you can't control yourself, then it's not THAT big of a sin." UGH! Sin. Go on sinning. But please, please, don't justify it. Don't gloss it over. Sin is sin is sin. Bad is bad is bad. We all do bad stuff. That's just the way it is. My sins will probably look different than yours, but we all sin. Sex before marriage isn't more right for you than it is for me. There's a black line. Some of us chose to cross it, other's don't. "For me..." isn't a philosphy that works...

So my philosophy will be this: You are wrong. But, you are entitiled to your opinion. I will express my views and hope that you respect them; please express yours and I'll respect you.

But at the end of the day, there is no gray. One of us is right, one is wrong. Or we could both be wrong. We probably are...because we are sinners. But I'm not going to make excuses for my sin.

PS. Yes, you can take the Bible quite literally. He meant what He said.
Dante Alighieri--"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."