What do you REALLY believe??

After my last blog, I thought I would share something I read this week from C.S. Lewis in his book called "The Case for Christianity". Remember that our world (including every educational institution that doesnt believe in the authority of the Scriptures) teaches that there are "no absolutes". C.S Lewis argued that the belief that there are no moral absolutes is betrayed by the desire in all people to be treated fairly or properly and by their complaints when they are not.

So, listen to Lewis:

"now what interests me about these remarks is that the man who makes them isnt just saying that the other man's behavior doesnt happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies, "to hell with your standard". Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing doesnt really go against the standard, or that if he does, there is some special excuse...it looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have."

We have all seen it (especially if we have ever watched children play!!). Someone who is wronged lashes out against the other person for violating some unspoken rule or law about fair play or basic decency. Lewis argues, and I agree, that this behavior is evidence of an innate sense of right and wrong present within all of us.

Inevitably, some would argue that the presence of evil in the world or disagreements between cultures about this "innate" sense would serve as proof against its existence. Lewis used the reality of World War II, the context in which he gave these lectures, to refute this argument.

Lewis continues:
"They called it Law of Nature because they thought every one knew it by nature and didnt need to be taught it. Taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behavior was obvious to everyone. And I believe they were right. If they werent, then all the things we say about the war are nonsense. What is the sense in saying the enemy are in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Germans at the bottom know as well as we do and ought to practice? If they had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have to fight them, we could no more blame them for that then for the color of their hair."

Of course those who REALLY believe in "no absolute truth" would argue that the actions of Nazi Germany were not wrong (and either was the action of the shooter at Virginia Tech). They would say that they were just doing what was right for them at the time. As I said last time, that is where that kind of thinking has to lead.

I will continue to speak on these issues in my next few posts.

We will continue to try and address some of the crucial issues of our day, such as:
- all religions are basically the same!!
- the most important thing is tolerance!!
- the only absolute is that there are "no absolutes"!!
- the Bible isnt the only holy book, what about all the other religious writings??

These are issues that we must address in order to know what we REALLY believe!!