2008 Woodie Awards
I Hate Religious Relativism
The Hate section--Just a few things to avoid... or change!
James Preus
Issue date: 4/28/08 Section: Opinion
When I prepared to take the ACT as a junior in high school, my school counselor told me to guess if I did not know the answer. I only had to guess one letter, and I had a one in four chance of getting it right.
If I left the bubbles blank, I would have a 100% chance of getting the question wrong, and if I filled in every bubble, I would have filled in the correct answer as well as the wrong answers, so I still would have gotten the question wrong. This is the way it is in many cases. There will often be one correct answer and many wrong answers. If one child says that three plus four is seven and another child says that four plus four is seven, one child is wrong and the other is correct. You can add different numbers besides three and four to get the number seven, but four and four never add up to seven. It would be an incorrect statement to say they did.
When I was in first grade my class went to the Milwaukee Zoo. Each first grader was paired up with an eighth grader. During our trip, a kid in my class named Austin argued with one of the eighth graders that "the" is spelled z-a. The eighth grader politely informed the kid that "the" is spelled t-h-e. They even polled me on the matter, and I agreed with the eighth grader. Austin was wrong. If I were to say that they were both right, I would have been wrong. "The" is spelled t-h-e, and only t-h-e.
Here's what I'm
getting at
You are most likely wondering where I am going with these little stories. I'll explain. A few weeks ago, a fellow student told me that he believes all religions are equally correct. I replied that this is impossible, because many religions teach contrary doctrines. He knew I would say that and replied that all religions basically teach the same thing: essentially, if you are good, then you will be rewarded. If this is true, it does not matter if you are a Muslim, Jew, Christian, or Hindu, because we all believe that a god or gods or even we will help ourselves to do good. I also asked him about punishment and Hell, because different religions have different consequences for doing wrong, but I was told that since God knows that punishment doesn't work, Hell does not exist.
If I left the bubbles blank, I would have a 100% chance of getting the question wrong, and if I filled in every bubble, I would have filled in the correct answer as well as the wrong answers, so I still would have gotten the question wrong. This is the way it is in many cases. There will often be one correct answer and many wrong answers. If one child says that three plus four is seven and another child says that four plus four is seven, one child is wrong and the other is correct. You can add different numbers besides three and four to get the number seven, but four and four never add up to seven. It would be an incorrect statement to say they did.
When I was in first grade my class went to the Milwaukee Zoo. Each first grader was paired up with an eighth grader. During our trip, a kid in my class named Austin argued with one of the eighth graders that "the" is spelled z-a. The eighth grader politely informed the kid that "the" is spelled t-h-e. They even polled me on the matter, and I agreed with the eighth grader. Austin was wrong. If I were to say that they were both right, I would have been wrong. "The" is spelled t-h-e, and only t-h-e.
Here's what I'm
getting at
You are most likely wondering where I am going with these little stories. I'll explain. A few weeks ago, a fellow student told me that he believes all religions are equally correct. I replied that this is impossible, because many religions teach contrary doctrines. He knew I would say that and replied that all religions basically teach the same thing: essentially, if you are good, then you will be rewarded. If this is true, it does not matter if you are a Muslim, Jew, Christian, or Hindu, because we all believe that a god or gods or even we will help ourselves to do good. I also asked him about punishment and Hell, because different religions have different consequences for doing wrong, but I was told that since God knows that punishment doesn't work, Hell does not exist.
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