The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

The god-given rights fallacy is also moral relativism masquerading as moral absolutism. Moral relativism, bemoaned by religious scholars and Christian nationalists, is the idea that morality might change with time or the situation. They believe in moral absolutes handed down from on high. To take an oversimplified example, the moral absolutist might believe it is always immoral to kill because god says so. The moral relativist, on the other hand, might believe it is acceptable to kill in some circumstances, to save innocent lives, for instance. The religious system of absolute morality is actually moral relativism in disguise, but with an alarming alteration: God-given rights depend solely on a particular individual’s interpretation of god’s word. Perhaps that individual adheres to the interpretation of a higher authority, such as a pope or an author of a holy book. But at the end of the line, a human being is claiming to know “God’s will.” One person’s moral belief is given the authority of divine law. That relativism is far more dangerous because it involves a fallible human being claiming divine sanction. In our example, the moral absolutist believes killing is unacceptable because god said so; therefore, if god changes his mind and orders someone to kill their child, as he did with Abraham and Isaac, or to fly a plane into a building, the moral absolutist must listen. If they balk at murdering their son, as any decent human ought, they are exercising their own morality...

Moral relativism