In today's society, the core values are centered around everyone's opinion being valid and true. Respect is accepting others' beliefs and not challenging anything they say, for we are all entitled to our own opinion about life. But how can everyone's opinion be valid and true? Wouldn't one of them have to be the truth?
In this world, the courts abide by the law of the land. When criminals are on trial - standing before a judge - they are all ruled by the same set of laws of the country. But imagine if a judge sentenced someone to life in jail for murder, and the criminal stood up and said: "I don't believe murder is wrong! And everyone has the right to choose what is the law for themselves, so I'm not going to jail." Imagine if everyone was cool with this and he just went home. The world would be in chaos. This doesn't happen though, because the law is true for every person in the country, no matter how many people think they are above the law.
The same goes for life. There is an ultimate truth in life. Thinking otherwise is called relativism. Relativism is the view that truth is subjective to individual people, cultures, and times. It claims that there is no truth, which is a contradicting claim. If you say something is true, then something contradictory can't also be true because two opposing claims can't both be right. Relativism is essentially saying that the only thing in life that is true for everybody is that nothing is true for everybody.
I've heard people say, "The truth about life is that there is no truth." And they say that this statement is true. But if this statement is true, then it is a self-refuting statement because there must be truth in order for a statement to be true.
Society says that different cultures and time periods call for different truths and guiding principles. But in reality, if something was true 1,000 years ago, then it is still true now since truth never changes. And truth must be universal among cultures and places, because something either is true or isn't true. We all have the same human nature, and simply believing different things doesn't just make them reality.
Everyone agrees that there is truth in subjects that can be scientifically proven. I mean, picture if people started applying relativism in math. People would start claiming that just because 2+2=4 for you, doesn't mean that it equals 4 for them. Maybe they want it to equal 5. Using relativism in scientific matters would provide no way for teachers to grade and no way for society to be properly structured, for everyone would be on different pages. Why is it any different when it comes to the world of morality? It's not different, and it is just the lie that society is telling us.
Relativism is one of the biggest threats to humans. It wrongly shapes the world as we know it and comforts all of us in any false beliefs. We shouldn't be comforted in the lies, because a world where criminals decide their own fate sounds dreadful. We need to move forward as a society that doesn't view claiming to know the truth as intolerant and disrespectful. Discovering the truth and respecting people can go hand-in-hand. Instead of pursuing truth separately, we should humbly seek after truth together in unity.
