Why Absolutism Bugs Me

It's not unusual for someone to make an absolute statement. We do it all the time. Simple reason being that people don't like relativism. They like sharp, clearly defined lines between right and wrong, good and bad, victor and loser, saint and sinner.

There's a lot of reasons for that - and most of them are valid. It's too easy to use relative ideas to justify any behavior, no matter how screwed up it might be.

Which is completely beside the point.

The point is simply that the things that are good for me and bring a kind of inner peace may not necessarily be the same things that trigger it for you. Some of that may be cultural, some learned, and some part of our respective biochemistries.

This is no more apparent than with religions. While any one of them might be a valid method of achieving that peace, it is not necessarily the only way - or even the original or cardinal way.

As a result, I have to be very skeptical about any religion - whether organized or not - that claims that it and only it is the one true answer. Even in math, there's more than one way to get the answer "two" - whether it's by adding one and one, or subtracting one from three.

Of course, it's not that simple, and there are obvious cases where one system has obvious flaws - removing the ability of others to find their own peace by forcing them to be human sacrifices comes to mind. However, in a vast majority of cases there is no clear reason why religion X should be the one "true" path, and religion Y cannot be the one "true" path for someone else.

So where do I get off being so dogmatic about absolutism, right?

There's a good political analogy that I can give that pretty well sums it up for me:

I am Joseph McCarthy, and I sincerely believe that Communism is an attempt by other countries to subvert our way of life and freedoms. Given this belief, /any/ methodology that I choose to employ against Communists (or suspected Communists) is VALID, because I am "right" and they are "wrong".

Notice that the certainty of "rightness" in the above example would justify removing the very freedoms and way of life I was trying to protect... in order to protect them.

Such absolutism - rather than religion or politics themselves - can be utilized to justify nearly every progrom, genocide, and discrimination against those groups.

Consider, what is the most frequent objection to the Religious Right? Is it simply the fact that they are Christian? No, because other Christians have problems with the hypocrisy and methodology of the RR. Is it because of their beliefs? Some might say yes, but I wouldn't agree. Who cares what an individual - or group - believes?

It is because of the absolutism - or dogmatism, if you will - that insists that their point of view be imposed on others because they "know" that only their way is "right" - and it's "right" for everybody.

It is a short step from believing that your way is "right" for everybody to believing that the ends - the preservation of your way - justify the means of preserving those ends.

Not taking that step is a hard thing indeed.