The Tyranny Of The Times

In the midst of a recent discussion I was accused of being "behind the times". That was the best argument the person could put forth against my position on homosexuality; that position being that it is sinful. Of course this is but one of any number of hot button issues that we could have been discussing with the same response. But the sinfulness of a particular behavior is not my point here today. Rather my point is the foundations upon which the arguments against these positions are built. Those arguments, boiled down to their simplest terms, are based on the fact that they are simply out of sync with the consensus of our day.

So then, anyone who would openly insist in these days that certain behaviors are sinful is considered to be a bad person simply because that view is not now widely held... that's it. It should be no surprise given the strength of that argument that actual counter arguments mounted in favor of sinful behaviors are usually abandoned in favor of the much easier avenue of name calling. Assigning a derogatory name to someone with whom you disagree, as oppose to say an intellectual argument, is definitely not "behind the times".

This shallowness has its consequences however, one of them being the loss of freedoms. And in the same way that the man who has lived his life free, upon learning that he is now subject to a tyrant, must decide his course as it pertains to his willingness to submit to that tyrant, so too must the contemporary man who holds to the concept of absolute truths must decide his course under the tyranny of these times. Either way there will be a high price of some sort that will be paid.

Update: see also this article posted by Glen.