In response to my conversion piece, V wrote:
Having authored a book [on the subject], I naturally paid close attention to your argument.
As
a minor point, I do not think that the issue is whether there is truth,
or there is no truth. Rather, it is whether we can, or cannot, know
what that truth is. I hope you appreciate the fact that those are two
altogether different questions, the answer to the first one being "yes"
and to the second being either a "yes" or a "no," depending on what
kind of truth we are talking about. For the religious truth, the answer
at the present is, unfortunately, a "no."As
to whether the "non-religious" (like the Communists) are any less prone
to violence, I think you are right. But the reason for that is, that
both the religious who are violent, and the non-religious who are
violent, are motivated by the exact same thing — the "truth." In my
book, I examine 5 such truths — in chronological order, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, Communism and Nazism. The West became a much nicer
place than the Moslem world not because it adopded a nicer religion,
but because it essentially abandoned the notion of True Faith,
substituting it with individual faith.And
I was curious to see how you would treat the subject of prayer for
someone else to see the light. I could never clearly understand why
people do that. Do they expect God to suddenly see the light after
their supplication, and say "oh shoot, I clean forgot to enlighten that
very nice and deserving person Joe that Jim is praying for; let me do
it now!"? Doesn’t He know without our prayers? I understand the
motivation — which you described in very clear terms; but I cannot
understand people’s ideas of God that could lead them into such a
mindset.All this said, it was a very good article — very thought provoking. (Else, why would I write to you???)
Based on what you’ve written, it appears that you’re expressing
relativist sentiments. Truth is not synonymous with opinion; thus,
there cannot be Jewish "truth," Christian "truth," Nazi "truth," etc.
(In fact, I cannot think of a more flamboyant oxymoron than the last.)
There is only the Truth, and other things either accord with it or do not.
Then, I could not disagree with the following line more:
"The West became a much nicer place than the Moslem world not because it
adopded a nicer religion, but because it essentially abandoned the
notion of True Faith, substituting it with individual faith."
The Truth is exactly the opposite: It is the concept of individual
faith — which is usually synonymous with moral relativism — that is
causing us to become meaner all the time. Moreover, what would you
rather have, a society with bad individual faith, or one with a good
faith that it considers true? The point is that individual faith isn’t
by definition good; it’s just by definition individual. (However,
"True Faith" is by definition good; if it’s not, it isn’t true faith.)
In other words, what good is individual faith, if many individuals
decide to embrace one prescribing human sacrifice, slavery and a whole
basketful of vices?
You see, when we discuss things nowadays, we always avoid a very
uncomfortable but important question: What is good? If a faith,
ideology, or philosophy has a basis in Truth, if it is good, we should
want everyone to embrace it and view it as the true one; if it is not
good, it should be our sincerest hope that no one will embrace it. It
is only by ascertaining what is good and living it that the world
becomes a better place.
As for the matter of moral relativism, I don’t have the time to do it
justice here. If interested, though, you can read my essay on the
topic titled "The Nature of Right and Wrong." It can be found here.
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