Interesting email from a reader:
The reader who wrote in to say:
“It’s important to understand that people did not go out of their way to
“make this stuff [relativism] up” — all they were doing was following the
logical consequences of secularism, which disenthralled the traditional
absolutes derived from religion… “
is quite wrong, and making a mistake very common on the Right. Rejecting
ethical absolutism (or objectivism, with a small ‘o’) may be a *practical*
consequence of secularism (certainly many of the atheists and other
secularists I know are also relativists, although when I did an informal
survey, I was surprised that it wasn’t closer to all of them). But it is
very far from a *logical* consequence. I won’t bore you with the details
but let’s just say that when pressed on this point, it’s very rare for
theists to come up with an actual argument showing how relativism
*logically* follows from secularism. The best most of them do is something
along the lines of “Moral rules require a rulemaker”, but this is merely
asserted, not defended, and in the even rarer instances when it is
defended, they run into the Euthyphro fallacy and go poof.