More Dobson's World

Richard Land, the Southern Baptist Convention's chief spokesman on social issues, knows what's behind the torture at Abu Ghuraib: Symptom of Moral Crisis Christian Post 04/30/05. Certainly not that saintly man Rummy. And not anybody in the officer corps, who Land seems to think is serious about prosecuting those who commit torture.

Yep, you guessed it! It's those darn liberals and relativists and secular humanists:

Having subjected too many of our children to more than a generation of "values clarification" and societal moral relativism, we have produced ever larger numbers of "chestless" [heartless] men and women. And this is far more than a religious vs. secular issue. It is a traditional morality vs. post-modernist issue. Going to church, synagogue, temple, or mosque, doesn’t guarantee Lewis' "chest" or heart. We know that some of the accused soldiers attended church regularly. Perhaps some of these churches have been heavily influenced by moral relativism. Perhaps these soldiers were taught by precept or example, or both, to view the Ten Commandments as the Ten Suggestions to be affirmed or rejected by personal choice. Examples abound in our society of Buffet Baptists and Cafeteria Catholics who believe they have the right to pick or choose which parts of their religious tradition to affirm or reject and that the moral imperatives of their religious traditions are mere suggestions until personally affirmed by themselves, the final arbiter of right and wrong. Both The Barna Group and the Pew Forum have done surveys which show a remarkable disconnect between the teachings of various religious traditions and the personal beliefs and practices of those tradition’s adherents.

After speculating freely, apparently without a shred of actual information on what kind of religious instruction the perpetrators in question actually received, he gives us the following, which he seems to think is compelling evidence of moral degeneracy:

Dennis Prager, a popular social commentator and Jewish ethicist, tells a story that illustrates the impact this moral relativism has had on our children. He says that for more than a decade now he has been asking young people in various forums this question: "If your pet dog and a stranger were both drowning and you could only save one, which would you choose?" Consistently, one-third answer their dog, one-third answer the stranger, and one-third say it's too hard a question and they can’t answer it.

So the moral is: kids who have dogs grow up to be torturers?!?