Maggie's Farm

This is the core of C.S. Lewis's "The Abolition of Man."

OK, now I see AVI was already there. Here's what I posted:

AVI has hit on the brilliance of "The Abolition of Man." If there's no standard, then there's no standard. If it's not meaningful to say one action is right and another wrong, then it's also not meaningful to say one idea is meaningful and another not. When we deny meaning we saw off the limb we're sitting on.

One theory is more consistent than another? Who says consistency is admirable? One produces more human happiness? Who says happiness is an important goal? It's not as though moral relativists had to replace an outmoded moral scheme with a shiny new one. If they're to make any sense at all, they've got to replace it with a howling emptiness. Once they do that, why would they command anyone's attention for the accidental thoughts they happened to be experiencing in a meaningless world?

As Parker Posey said to Steven Spielberg, "Thanks! Give me a job!"

Mitchel44: All systems of morality have been used by imperfect people at all times to condone horrors, and always will be. That's a reflection on imperfect people rather than on the source of morality. I don't think people (including myself) have "evolved" to a moral standard from a past in which they were less moral. I do think there's a moral standard to which they should be held, and against which they always have been found wanting and always will be. From your comment, it seems you do, too. You also, I'm guessing, believe that the weird distortion that passes for Christianity among most imperfect people at most times falls short of a moral standard. There again, your approach suggests that you think there's a higher moral standard against which a flawed or primitive religion can be judged. But where does it come from?

I'd say men were more moral in very many ways in the past, and more moral in many other ways in the present. Each age has its special achievements and weaknesses. There is behavior that's commonplace today that would have resulted in general revilement in the ancient world, and vice versa. In both cases, we're measuring an age's behavior against a standard that's not inherent entirely in either age. Otherwise all we really could do is "root for the home team," i.e., pat ourselves on the back because whatever happens to be in fashion today is better than all that old stuff. But the standard by which we prefer today's moral achievements over that of the ancients is what? Ditto for die-hard nostalgic types: by what standard do they assert that the oldtimers were more moral than "these kids today"? Once you drop the idea of a standard that transcends any particular generation or fashion, all you have left is people who happen to prefer one thing or another. When they shout at each other about which is best, it's empty noise.

Nothing about that is an excuse for any age to conclude that it has the 100% correct take on Christianity. Each age probably gets a different part of it more right than other ages do. It's a good idea to look back to see what errors already have been made, so as to avoid making them again, and which achievements made have been lost, so as to bring them back.

Exactly what I was trying to say, but much clearer.