Filed under: happenings | Tags: cincinnati zoo, creation museum, morality, ravi zacharius, religion, right and wrong
In today’s Cincinnati Enquirer, a story on the front page tells of how our local zoo has decided to cut off a promotion partnership with another local big attraction – the Creation Museum – because of “dozens of calls” from people protesting the partnership.
I would first like to give my opinion on the matter: The Cincinnati Zoo did a very inappropriate thing by going into this deal to begin with, specifically because they accept public money via a tax levy. I part ways with many of my brothers and sisters in Christ in my strong belief in a separation between church and state.
For example, I don’t have a problem with a government approving unions between adults, so long as government doesn’t dictate what Churches approve of or honor. When I married my wife, I made the commitment to God, alone, and the paperwork for the state of Ohio was a formality. I fall into the C.S. Lewis camp of belief that there should be 2 distinct and different kinds of unions, those of the state and those of the Church. This intermingling of the two just muddies the waters of what the purpose of each really is.
So when it comes to this topic of the Creation Museum and the Cincinnati Zoo, I see it more of a “What were you thinking?!?” thing on the part of the zoo, than anything else. Keep public funds out of blatantly religious things. Just my opinion on the matter, and I reserve the right to change my mind on this as I age and gain more experience on the topic.
But…
The story caused me to also think on a big picture question: Who decides what is tolerable? Last month’s drama in California about gay marriage had the same question at it’s core when those in favor of gay marriage went on a rampage, essentially displaying intolerance at the will of the people. They used intolerance to lash out against intolerance.
When God or faith or any kind of religious thinking is taken out of the conversation, where is the objective frame work for figuring out what is ultimately right and wrong?
Pro-gay marriage or anti-Creationist folks are strong in their opposition to their counterparts, but any time I have engaged someone they simply cannot answer the question how they draw the distinction between wrong and right. If gay marriage is right… if creationism is wrong, just tell me why, on absolute terms.
On the surface, in the most shallow of terms in conversation, relativism is often cited as the rule of the day – that there is simply no ultimate right or wrong.
But if one logically draws that out, one must accept that his/her opinion on a matter of right or wrong is no longer valid! You say creationism is wrong. I say it’s right. In a relative context, neither of us are wrong, so why all the drama?
The fact that there is outrage, that there is conversation, is proof that even in the most relativistic thinker, has a core sense of wanting an ultimate right or wrong exists.
Here’s the trouble most find themselves in – the smart ones, anyway: They start with the consensus argument, that our social context is one that is very “open minded” to these ideas, and that as such we should be “open” to gay marriage, and “free” of creationism. The trouble is that they are at the same time bashing group-think and holding up group-think. Bashing it in their perceptions that people are opposed to gay marriage or somehow slaves to creationism. Holding up in their glorification of social contexts. It’s a circular firing squad.
Dr. Ravi Zacharius gives his life’s work to looking at these kinds of questions, and the question of absolute morality, specifically. He points out that absolutes must exist because if they didn’t, their non-existence would in fact be an absolute: They would absolutely not exist.
So at some point, we’re all going to have to ask “why?” in determining the value of right or wrong in any situation. Unfortunately, the prevailing winds of thought dictate that most will spend most of the time debating the direction of that wind instead of where it’s coming from.
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Nicely done. Yeah, sounds like someone didn’t think that one through. The question of right or wrong was posed in Bill Maher’s Religulous, albeit with some pretty big radicals. He did question the head of the Creation Museum too.
Comment by Russ December 2, 2008 @ 2:25 pmI had a friend, very religious, make a comment when Obama was elected, that “we deserve him” and that “most wouldn’t understand”. Like throwing out a big shiny new wrapped present in the middle of an empty room to me. When asked why, I couldn’t get an answer, but found that some people essentially believe that the moral fiber of our country is in such disarray that we deserve a leader that will support this degradation. Interesting stuff to me as I am non-religious but am fascinated by people’s faith.
People are under no obligation to tolerate anything. Acceptance, however, is written into State and Federal laws. People don’t even have to do that unless they’re taking money from State or Federal governments.
Using government money to fund a religious-based museum is unconstitutional as there are provisions to separate Church and State.
Proposition 8 is about civil rights and I think its gravity far heavier than that of the Creation museum. For the past 150 or so years, the California State constitution described marriage using gender-neutral verbage, and in recent years the right to marry has been left to the public to decide. Half a century ago the dialogue was over buses, drinking fountains, and elevators. Legal precedents granting equal marriage rights among other minority groups are on the books, thus voiding Prop 8’s constitutionality.
I see a different commonality with these two issues, and that is the religious right feels entitled to moral superiority over everyone else. They feel that their truth should be funded by the government, and that their morality should be adhered to by everyone, whether the majority choose to endorse and abide by a minority’s approvable belief set or not.
Personally, I feel that rights should not be a voting issue, particularly when certain rights have been granted and now motioned to be taken away. ‘All men are created equal’ seems pretty cut and dry to me.
Add that the Mormons, an out-of-state based religious group, heavily funded a deceit-laden campaign to push their politics through again crosses the line of Separation of Church and State, albeit from the other side. There are laws in place to prevent religious organizations from doing precisely what the Mormons did (somewhere around 45% of the Yes on 8 funding came from Utah), so I feel the anger is righteous, the intolerance completely valid—if an organization can lobby for a Proposition on the ballot and then lie to voters to get it to pass and take civil rights away from another group of people, that’s a dangerous and horrible precedent we’ve set.
No on 8 was never about granting religious rights, it was about civil rights. If you get married in a church, you still have to go to the courthouse to sign a piece of paper—hell, many people don’t even get have a religious ceremony at all—what about them?
I feel that in pursuing moral rectitude, the religious right grossly oversteps one of their greatest commandments of ‘do unto others as you would have done to you.’ The God-fearing Yes on 8 voter’s life will go on as it always has whether or not same-sex couples can share their tax burden or not, so why deny someone else the right?
The religious right, particularly Christians, continually use revisionist (i.e. false) history to support their crusade to restore America to a Christian nation and are willfully blind to the fact that many of the founding fathers not only preached against theocracy—Thomas Jefferson among the most ardent—they held views of God and spirituality that no Christian would approve of. Be that as it may, none of the founding fathers wished to take away the rights of God-fearing Christians to practice as they pleased, simply that they would receive no preferential treatment in government.
I’ve met atheists who are more morally upright than some Christians I’ve met, in the terms of they are good to their fellow man and want to make the world a better place. An atheist would tell you that this life is the only chance you have to do the right thing, while a Christian flagellates themselves with good deeds, often missing the forest for the trees.
I was raised Christian and now consider myself somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist. I don’t really know and don’t really feel much urge to find out. Much of what I feel I learned about how to be the kind of person I wanted to be was from Christianity, not by what I experienced, but by what I didn’t. I have serious questions about the validity of the Bible as more than a literary work of astrological allegory. If you believe it on faith, great—but it’s basically a retread of many other Middle Eastern religions before it so…why is it special?
I also feel I am a better and happier person without Christianity in my life, as much of their experience is about guilt. And sure, I’ve had countless people tell me ‘well, guilt is not what Christianity is all about’—well, if I’ve had enough people defend it that way, it’s too recurrent a theme to deny. In short, if I felt Christianity offered me something I couldn’t get elsewhere—a like-minded community, moral guidance, inner peace, or an otherwise better, more fulfilling life—I’d consider it. If it works for you, that’s great. I felt like I tried it for a while and it is simply not for me. And my mind may change someday, but it is neither today nor tomorrow.
Comment by Drew December 3, 2008 @ 10:12 pm