In the past two posts on the Destruction of morals and the idolization of romantic love and Destruction of morals and the commodification of romantic love, we looked at the specific ways in which the destruction of morals have led to the idolization of romantic love and the commodification of love.
What we are seeing are the true consequence of absolute or objective morality and relative morality. In other words, to have objective morality there must be something that anchors morals — there must be an “authority” or “God.”
If people don’t believe in a “higher power” or “God” and are agnostic or atheist then they must believe in relative morality. Since relative morality is not absolute, there is no right or wrong. Everyone can do what they want, even to the detriment of others. Psychopaths, serial murderers, pedophiles, and the like are no different than you or me. This is the true conclusion of immoral red pill behavior: it’s basically everyone for themselves.
With the grounding of morality to an objective stance we have:
- There is a God or higher power
- If we assume this God or higher power is Christian (since we are on a Christian blog), said Christian God prescribes objective moral behaviors.
- Marriage is made for sex, and sex is made for marriage. Romance and sex happens in the confines of marriage.
- Sex and romance are inextricably linked to a singular person that you marry, and thus cannot be commodified to use as a weapon or temptation.
However, without the grounding of an objective morality we enter relative morality:
- There is no God or higher power
- There is only relative moral behavior, which means everyone can do what they want without consideration of [higher] consequences. Likewise, the only reason to obey laws would be to not be punished. If you can get away with something without being punished then it’s good. Baser instincts like feelings become your truth.
- Sex is made for romance or other feelings. Marriage is a useless or archaic institution that only serves a purpose if you give it meaning: most opt out. Marriage or not-marriage can thus be incentivized through commodification — divorce in incentivized so many will divorce.
- Sex and romance are commodities that you can with what you want without shame: prostitution, manipulation, trading for affection, trading for commitment, and the like.
- At this point, the only thing still driving marriage is that it is a status symbol in the middle and upper class in America. Those that care not for it will cohabit instead.
This is why when you can compare the secular and Christain manosphere you get wildly disparate behavior.
The secular manosphere recommends having sex with multiple women at the same time and never marrying at all. There’s nothing wrong with sleeping with other men’s wives, or caring about sexual health other than yourselves or so you won’t get a bad reputation. There’s no value in women other than how they can please you and satisfy you. This is why the primary thing strived for in the secular manosphere is the maximization of attractive traits such as the dark triad: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. There’s no need to have a moral standard of behavior with women or even men.
If there is no God, they are right. You want to maximize attraction to attract as many women as possible and spread your seed and have fun and be happy. Yet, in the end, you see that this is not happiness or fulfillment. Most players end up getting “player burnout” and realize that women aren’t an answer. If women aren’t the answer when there is no God in this life, then what is?
This is ultimately the great question that everyone needs to answer for themselves. Is there a God? Is that God the Christian God?
On the other hand, if we are wrong Paul makes the case rightfully:
1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified [f]against God that He raised [g]Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
This is indeed why Christians in the secular manosphere are looked on spitefully. Holding onto morality when there is no God would be foolish and to your own detriment. Believing in something that is false with no benefit to yourself is to be derided.
But read the rest of the 1 Corinthians 15 to see the hope we have in Jesus.
I suppose the thing I find most interesting is that the logical behavior that comes out of belief in God or lack of belief is God is so wildly disparate. Hence, the title of this post — the chain of corruption. It leads in two different directions and leads to wholly different conclusions and behavior.
Christianity and masculinity 
“Why shouldn’t someone just kill you and take your stuff?” – the question on which all relativistic morality fails. There are ways to respond, but everyone always grasps for religious morality because they know what they have doesn’t work.
Adam & Eve are the clearest examples of what happens when you reject God. And we’ve all paid for it.
Blessed Easter for everyone. He is Risen!
The secular manosphere purposes an ethic consistent with their metaphysic. For them the highest virtue is to attain the most pleasure and avoid the most pain. As a Christian I understand they do not know the things of God, God must first regenerate them. (1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.) But even in their worldview without God they know the corruption of sin and sense the destruction of feminism on society. They do not have an absolute ethic by which to frame the issue, but they are often more insightful than those who confess Christ but are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. The secular manosphere is often better at identifying the symptoms than the cause, while Christendom is running around denying that there is a problem.
Both ethics, the secular ethic summarized by “the one who gets the most pleasure wins” and the christo-feminst ethic lead to the profaning of sex and the destruction of the family. The Hedonists, the Pietists and the Neo-Platonists all claim an alternate to the law and Gospel of Christ. Either autonomy dies or theonomy dies. Christ died to forgive me my sins of autonomy– He is risen an reigning that is theonomy.
I’ve made similar moral argument before, that said atheists pointed out some interesting implications of it.
If we believe in higher consequences, aren’t we then doing right things because of these consequences (for reward or fear of punishment) instead of just because it’s the right thing to do?
What does make things right/good/moral in Christianity? Just that God said so? What about Abraham and Isaac? Would you kill your son if God told you?
Also, even atheists can adhere to objective morality – they just have to define it first (usually basing it in feelings and intuition) and some made admittedly pretty good job with that (e.g. various forms of consequentialism – just a couple of days ago, I was in discussion bellow http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/26/high-energy-ethics/ (very interesting article and discussion) recommended to read http://raikoth.net/consequentialism.html )
Sorry for playing the devil’s advocate here, I have answers (of various quality) to these objections, but I’d like to read your reaction.
@ Pilgrim of the East
I suppose I’ll bite. It really all goes back to performance and desire.
Clearly solved by reading various Scriptures in my opinion:
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Titus 3:Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, 2 to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. 3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs [a]according to the hope of eternal life. 8 This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.
1 John 4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has [d]for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear [e]involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
Also, Abraham and Isaac was before the old covenant and the new covenant. Abraham did not have the explicit commandment 6, which means everything was on faith. I would have hard time believing that God would willfully put someone to the test to break the explicit commandments He has given (of shedding innocent blood at least). That’s why Abraham scenario must have occurred before the law. In the context of faith it also models the Father sending Jesus to die for us, which is why Abraham is the father of our faith (Romans 4).
If you’re performing to please God… or on the opposite side performing to avoid consequences that’s not what being a Christian is about. It’s the desire welling up in you from knowing what He did for us on the cross as shown in the above Scriptures.
We can also talk about conscience and how it is formed and how it can be seared (1 Timothy 4), but I don’t want to get into that discussion as that’s too long.
I think in general with the above two links (just skimmed them) is that whenever you start to argue some form of God’s creation (e.g. morality) it is always going to go back to arguments for the existence of God or not. That’s a really long discussion too.
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@Pilgrim of the East
There is one alternative not mentioned – that of the atheist Ayn Rand. Morality is (intrinsically and rationally) objective. The Natural Law. CS Lewis goes on about the topic in Mere Christianity and even more pointedly in Abolition of Man. Morality is like 2+2=4, or perhaps like the speed of light is 186,000 MPH – no one considers “but why does 2+2=4” a reasonable question. Maybe one can ask why the speed of light is what it is, but if there is a deeper answer, it will still be some other arbitrary fact as fact.
Thus one can state as facts and not mere opinions that it is wrong, evil to lie, steal, cheat, or murder.
It also has nothing to do with desire or pleasure. It might be useful or satisfying to lie or steal in a particular instance, but it will hurt later, and that hurt needs to be brought forward to the point of decision on the act.
Where they seem to abandon reason is sex. In Lewis’ Abolition, the appendix points out that adultery and fornication were considered evils across time and space. If morality is objective, then even atheists have to admit promiscuity is evil (even if, like smoking, it is pleasurable). If they wish an exception (like Ayn’s affair) the burden of proof is on them why the collective wisdom and knowledge is wrong. And I doubt anyone can come up with a good rational answer.
If everyone has held to 2+2=4, and you want to say 2+2=5, then you need to demonstrate it, I need not have to defend 2+2=4.
They may say something like “It was about pregnancy and we have the pill”, but I’d point out now 1 in 3 Americans have a STD. Many aren’t curable. And we give welfare to single mothers – the more out of wedlock births the more cash and the children tend to be feral. The mountain of evidence of actual outcomes is that sex belongs within monogamous marriage. There might be pleasure in a moment, but pain, regret, pregnancy, assassination (abortion), and a totally empty feeling which will exceed the pleasure.
And that is the whole point of rational good and evil. If it was immediately and strongly pleasurable to do good, painful to do evil, we’d automatically all do the right thing. But sometimes the immediate sensations are out of phase with the good or evil, and we must then realize it and act on the knowledge.
There is both reason, and the will to act on reason. I know if I smoke, it will be pleasurable – but I also know it will be addicting, so painful to quit, but also painful when the damage to my body accumulates.
What the secular manosphere is trying to do is have it both ways. If the messages were not about how to be a successful pickup artist but instead how to be a successful burglar, thief or con-artist (and is the latter so different than a PUA?), they might notice the problem.
You can assume women are all bad so try to justify using them, but can you not equally find a group where you could justify theft? Or for that matter, if there is no objective morality, or if sex is an exception, isn’t that the exact justification for the oppression caused by “All men are rapists”?
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