"They prefer the clarity of classical music; the abiding joys of Shakespeare; the reliability of steak, potatoes, and a wine of known vintage."

Heaven....I'm in Heaven....and the cares that hung around me through the week...

The writer makes an adolescent's mistake. Just because it is a shiny new bauble (experimental theater, modern art, etc.) doesn't make it good. Her friends are just too polite to inform her of her mistake. She is lucky in who she has for friends.

Also, it is interesting to note that in the body of her article she quotes her husband's reverance for John Quincy Adams. I have never heard nor read that the 2nd Adams was ever a man of consequence or importance to our nation's history. But then, again, I'm of the stupid party, so have probably missed the nuances that make him (Adams, that is) a great president.

Lastly, once again Mr. Judd's theory that the Left views man as perfectable and intrinsically good vs. the Right's view that everyone is capable of great sin has been, once again, confirmed by this writer.

Two varieties of the same type of fool— one thinks, "This is old, so it must be good." The other thinks, "This is new, so it must be better."

The writer also makes some mistakes. One is in assuming that the only other option to a certain set of morals are no morals at all. Another is that a dislike of the unknown or "eclectic" is intolerance and closemindedness.

It must be nice not to have to make moral choices, since they've all been solved for you by, I dunno, Pat Robertson?

Not making moral choices is, well, laziness. It's hard work, you have to think and not just feel. It also calls for a certain level of self-discipline to harden yourself to stick to your position when you've made the decision. Again, hardwork.

Harry:

The morality is unchanging, you have to choose to follow it.

Harry:

Is not the word "moral" redundant in your sentence? What is the difference for you between a moral choice and a choice?

Congratulations, you both missed the point.

Harry is, of course, referring to the question of just which version of Absolute Moral Truth to follow.

And the contradiction inherent in making the choice.

Where is this unchanging morality, Orrin?

Last night I was reading Sewall's diary (one of the greatest of all American books) and the issue of dancing came up.

It was declared to be immoral.

Query? Is it? Discuss.

Harry:

"Where is this unchanging morality, Orrin?"

Firstly, in the Ten Commandments. Secondly in the golden rule, that expression of a risky and quite unmerited Divine faith in mankind. Thirdly, tradition and the wisdom of ancestors, at least some of them. Actually, very few.

You two persist in believing you score lethal points by taking issues like dancing or usury or dietary rules, observing they vary from faith to faith, and concluding there can be no objective morality. Derrida would be proud of you.

The essence of faith, at least in the West, is the personal submission to the Divine Will. The timeless debate within faith is the degree to which this should be conditioned or defined by reason(in large part contingencies of the natural world) and personal conscience (substance over form, or freedom over authority). You are going to get many views on this, just as there are many different views on the correct way to submit. So what, exactly? Humans are a notorious thick species and can't agree on anything most of the time. Also, why do you find it inconceivable that the Divine Will is that this Jewish guy over here observes the Sabbath and that Catholic girl over there fasts during Lent?

You guys simply can't stop playing a scientist studying his lab rats. It's fine to pretend the religious are all thick and untutored, not worldly and erudite like the humanist men of science, but don't you ever pause to ask yourselves how so many brilliant, wordly minds chose faith? Do you honestly believe Richard John Neuhaus, Dietrich Boenhoffer, the learned rabbis of New York and many scientists, especially physicists and astronomers, haven't noticed that different people believe different, superficially incompatible things, even within the same faith? If you can't or don't want to accept faith, fine, but you have to define G-d in your own image to be so certain He would never want (or be resigned to) different peoples living by different rules.

The problem isn't that the religious are too isolated or stupid to realize and fret about the implications of different peoples believing different things at different times. The problem is your insistence that the only reality is the natural world of objective fact. If you are right, then, I agree, objective morality is a crock and we're all gonna die someday, so what the heck. Happy, now?

Every faith preaches that the sexual urge, especially among the young, should be restrained, controlled or sublimated until marriage or some personally and socially acceptable way to deal with the consequences. There are very good reasons for this, as a tour through your local inner city will reveal. Some frowned on dancing or rock music. Others traditionally relied on separating the sexes or chaperoning. Still others ordain modest dress. Some pagans actually indulged in mystical, sexual rites that seem libertine to us, but which were heavily sanctioned if violated. But they all are trying, in their own clumsy, uneven, inconsistent and sometimes cruel ways, to adhere to the same universal morality that mankind has always been impelled to follow. That doesn't mean they are all equally valid or to be equally respected, but that question can't be addressed without considering other factors, starting with the dignity of women and the protection of children, both generally and specifically. It is only you and your fellow secularists that can't think of any reasons why young people shouldn't be permitted to rut at will if the hormones move them, but you steadfastly refuse to accept any responsibility for the consequences.

Jeff:

What versions? There's one.

Harry:

No.

I'm not citing differences in morality among religions, Peter. Orrin asserts an unchanging morality, to be found somehow in religion.

I'm asking, where? Which religion? Once we choose the religion, where in that religion? Can behavior that is immoral on Monday be moral by Friday?

When did I say anything about children rutting at will? I asked, very gently, if dancing is immoral?

In Sewall's time, it was regarded as so immoral that people who danced were driven out of the community. (I've hinted, more than once, that Orrin ought to read Sewall. Sewall was the most admirable of all American Christians.)

Today, the same religion holds dances in the church basement.

You seem to think that somehow I'm against the Golden Rule.

My version of the Golden Rule wouldn't allow me to drive someone out of his home for dancing.

Not only have neither of you established that there is one, universal and unchanging morality; you haven't even established that Christianity is moral at all.

Harry:

Dancing, per se, is not immoral, though there's no reason a society should not ban it if they see fit to.

Judeo-Christian morality isn't exactly obscure:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1002/

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1193/

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1270/

If they ban it because the noise disturbs the milch cows, then your distinction holds up.

If the reason they see fit to not only ban dancing but to drive dancers out of the community is a moral reason, then, by definition, they have said dancing is immoral.

There goes your univeral morality, because you just stated it is not immoral.

For a mighty long time, Peter, the tradition and wisdom of the ancestors was antidancing.

But I have an example that is even more to the point than dancing: Iconoclasm.

Images are either moral or immoral, and the wisdom of the ancestors has been on both sides of that question, but it is unquestionably and only a religious moral question.

So where's your one, universal and immutable morality now?

Not a trivial moral issue, either, since Christians have always thought it was a killing issue.

Harry:

There are moral reasons to ban dancing--that young, unmarried people are using it for sexualpurposes, that the form of dancing disrespects partners, etc. That doesn''t make dancing immoral per se.

The moral teachers declared it immoral as a matter of conscience.

Later they changed their minds.

You can hyoothesize all you want -- we did it all the time in Catholic religion class -- but we have on the table an actual example. Address that.

Dancing can be banned for moral reasons.