I find it interesting that in our day of relativistic thinking (the truth is whatever you believe it to be), people have such strong opinions. Would it not be more logical that if there is no such thing as objective reality, then everyone's opinion is equally valid. In fact, it would be more important for people to get in touch with what they themselves think than to embrace the perspective of others.
Yet people continue to be so strong in their opinions and many still think it is appropriate to convince others of their point of view. One might say that these people don't believe in relativistic thinking or they would be more tolerant. But what makes their thinking relativistic is that the opinions, which they hold so strongly, are very often no based on objective reality, but upon their feelings and personal preferences.
So they come to their conclusions based on a relativistic world view, and then (not always, but often) make their opinions absolute as they hope others would agree with them. If you don't believe me, listen to a radio call-in program for a few minutes.
Perhaps the reason why people so strongly state their opinions and get so emotional when their opinions are challenged is due to their opinions being based on emotions in the first place. Objective truth doesn't need an emotional defense. It stands on its own. But if the basis of our opinions is our feelings, then the only way to protect those opinions is with emotional arguments.
1 comment:
I think someone else may have pointed this out (Francis Schaeffer maybe?) but human behaviour doesn't truly conform to any belief system except the Truth--Biblical Christianity. We can say we believe in relativism all we want, but we'll never actually back that up with our behaviour.
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