Thursday, December 04, 2008

What Is Good?

Does mankind have a right to define what is good and what is evil? Have you never heard this refrain in culture after culture: "What right does any culture have to dictate to another culture what is good?" Embedded in that charge is always another charge: "The evil things that have happened in your culture deny you the prerogative to dictate to anyone else."

Anyone living at this time and old enough to recall will never forget the outrage of some members of the media when President Ronald Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," or when President George W. Bush branded three nations as forming an "axis of evil." Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, in the meantime, remained well within his own comfort zone when he pronounced the United States as a "satanic power," according to the same members of the media.

Such moralizing goes on, always with the same bottom line: "Who gives whom the right to pronounce the other evil?" I have heard this question countless times. The very word "morality" has become a lightning-rod theme. "Who is to say what is good? How audacious that anyone lay claim to an absolute!" This lies at the core of our entire moral predicament, and it is truly fascinating, isn't it? But we find an interesting twist here, because this selective denial of absolutes in morality does not carry over into the sciences. [Quoted from Ravi Zacharias book: "The Grand Weaver"]

wow, I typed all of that without one mistake to fix! I usually have many to correct.

I've run into that question in my world. Who's right is right and according to which right standard is that person qualified as being right? When we chose not apply God's standards of right from wrong to our living, we are then "doing that which is right in our own eyes" and there is no more standards that people can live up to anymore. Too much of this is going on in the USA today.

Here is a video I made of something good to do! Practicing aloha - resting. I took the video when Doug and I were in Hawaii.

It's Doug practicing ALOHA in Hawaii.

6 comments:

Faith said...

Great post...gave me much to think on today! I like Ravi Z.
And your video is great!!

Susannah said...

Chuckle, chuckle. I think I"ll go practice Aloha, right now!

Nice quote from Ravi Zacharias. God's Word is the only standard of right and wrong. And He adds a holy twist--grace.

Hugs!

TJ said...

Cute video! I think practicing Aloha is a great idea!

Constance said...

This topic is one of my BP points. It's frustrating to live in today's world of tolerance and try to live a righteous life. I hear all the time from non-Christians the arguments you cited. As Christians we should be standing on the word of God as our foundation. The divide happens whenever 2 different people are using 2 different bases for their foundation.

I ran into this recently on my blog when I had an "ugly" comment left because I questioned President-elect Obama's being a Christian. I used the Bible as my source and she ended up quoting a Maya Angelou poem!

At some point you have to draw the line between "being ready to answer for the hope that lies within you" and "casting your pearls before swine".

Connie
PSWhat a fun video of Doug!

Marie VW said...

haha. funny video. I like the end how he goes back to the big arc watching the tennis ball again. ha.

Susannah said...

P.S. You have an award waiting for you when you get a chance to stop by! :~D