no absolutes

imagine a world with no physical laws. there is no law of gravity. there is no law of death and decay. there is no magnetic attraction or repulsion. there is no friction, plants don't consume carbon dioxide and expel oxygen, bees don't pollinate flowers, and trees don't blossom in the spring. nothing is constant, nature is fickle and things that go up may or may not come down.

there is no fire; there is only cold. or not. i don't know.

will this circuit carry a current? who knows? will friction keep me from sliding all over the world or not? if i open my eyes this morning will the sun even be there today? if i open my mouth will the air carry the sound of my voice or will it complain how i hurt its feelings?

when do we plant? how do we walk? what do we eat and how? how do we start a fire? how do we breathe? does any physical action have meaning? can i predict anything at all that will happen in the next moment?

imagine a language without rules. imagine every person speaks differently than every other person. how do we share? how do we love? how do we express anger and offer forgiveness? how do any two people connect? imagine an entire world of isolation and chaos.

in the mid 19th century charles darwin published on the origin of the species. it was his attempt to explain the origins of the biological world in purely material terms. that is to say, it was an attempt to explain our origins apart from a creator.

as a scientific theory it was complete nonsense. it was literally pure conjecture. darwin made a few observations about animals on the galapagos islands then did a thought experiment. now while einstein's thought experiments proved true, and were based on mathematical and physical principles, darwin's thought experiments were based on fantasy mutant creatures: giraffes born with multiple varying lengths of neck and other rampant ridiculous macguffins. however...none of that mattered to the atheists in academia. finally they had something that appeared remotely pseudo-scientific they could use to eliminate God from every aspect of university life. it was their supreme unholy grail, and eliminate Him they did.

years later, when these same professors realized that God was no longer relevant, they also realized that His commands were no longer relevant. Enter moral relativism. murder isn't murder anymore. Neither is adultery or theft--nothing is wrong. the moral quality of an action doesn't depend on any supernatural absolute, but on the feelings or whims of the person committing the action, the circumstances of the action, and anything else that said person may deem relevant: diet, hobbies, disability, literally anything.

what holds a society together? the laws that govern how we relate to each other. things like kindness, forgiveness, justice, patience are all necessary. without rules they do not exist. without them society degenerates into chaos and isolation. the academic titans have torn down the foundations of our society without giving us anything to replace them save their impermanent sand blocks of hurt feelings and personal opinions.

there is no grace without justice, and there is no justice without right and wrong. There is no love when there is no law governing what love is and what it isn't, who to love, and who to punish. there is adultery, anger, revenge, and hate and every form of sexual perversion but there is no love.

this is the society we live in today. whether its gender confusion or racism or abortion  or socialism, we must have absolutes to counter these with love, patience, kindness, grace, and forgiveness. murder is wrong in any form. adultery and homosexuality are wrong. theft of any kind is wrong. as christians, we do no one any service by being "tolerant" of what God calls sin. all we do is further the collapse of the world God has given us.

we are the light of the world. if we don't know what is right and what is wrong, no one else does. if we are not the light of the world, there is no light in the world.

Polyester

I started reading a book called "Polyester Christians". It begins with a lot of detail about what it means to be a cotton Christian (i.e., a Christian who uses natural, or authentic fibers). True to form, the detail focuses on what should be done. Examples include consistent prayer (good), consistent miracles (wut?), visiting the sick (also good), listing the twelve apostles or the ten commandments (good yeah, but I believe in ideas more than specifics) and a bunch of other superficial things.
I used to attend his church and these are the same things he's been talking about for the past thirty years. That would be fine if he had begun with any sort if depth to his theology, but honestly, no one starts out with any depth. That's what it means to be "green".
Doing good things is fine, but we are not called to do good things. Evil people do good things. Atheists give to the poor. Pagans feed the homeless. Wiccans care for their elders. Are we Christians because we do these while we recite Scripture? Do we do these things better than the godless? What makes us different? What makes us "Christians"? How do we even become Christians in the first place?
This last question may give us some good insight. We become Christians through our trust. We trust in God and He changes is into the image of His Son, and we share His love with the world. But everything begins with trust.
The evidence of our trust is not what we do but who we are. It is our character.