Presuppositions in the Stew

The givens, a.k.a. the cultural presuppositions, the air you breathe/the water you swim in must be examined. We must examine them or become mindless zombies. We must examine them on t.v. and in the pulpit. We must think for ourselves. Or we are the frogs that will boil in the getting-hotter water unless we jump out. We don't know we're heating up in the stew because we're IN it.... Getting our brains and consciences fried even as we glibly watch t.v., work, and shop. Frogs in our hot water sauna whirlpool poured for us by our predesesors.

The stew we're in, which is new to modernity, is relativism but that's a tired over-used word that needs freshening. We're now living in the time that is so enlightened that whatever you want to believe is cool and whatever works for you will supposedly make you happy. We're living in the second Dark Ages. (The first "Dark Ages" a.k.a. the "Middle Ages" was named Dark after the so-called "Enlightenment.") At least the Middle Ages had Augustine and Acquinas!

How did some of us become bed-fellows with relativism in matters of morality and truth? Some Christian writers blame the philosopher Kant for reason's demise. Others start with Descartes or the like. Whoever and however, now most of us distrust our own brains(especially Protestants as opposed to Catholics); we distrust commonsense and even our senses, thanks to Kant. Today we leave opinions to the experts in every field. Religion is personal so keep it to yourself, out of schools, out of politics, out of anything that could make a difference. Religion is a private matter relagated to your own relativistic opinions. It doesn't have meaning for life because religion is supposedly irrational. (Well, that's just crazy if you ask me.)

The metaphysical remains. The ontological, the real behind the word, stumps. Reality abides. Trip over that! One religion can be more true than another, having correspondence to reality. (Hope I don't now go to liberal hell for saying that, which would be like pantheonic, mystical energy radiating pure tolerance for everybody that agrees on everything and nothing--which would be boring as well as stupid and impossible. But a real God who has certain attributes and not others is the ground of all being, the Creator, who has a vested interest in our redemption.

All that said, I still wish certain fundamentalists wouldn't go beyond truth. They have confused the existence of absolute truth with their ability to always know it and preach it, their own biases left unacknowledged.