Moral Relativism: Why Voluntaryism and the Bible Are Incompatible

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?

Romans 13:1-3

One of the most vexing and recurrent issues I find with the Christian Bible is the constant mixed messages, which I am becoming more and more convinced are there by design, as a Hegelian Dialectical abuse, or "analysis paralysis" control mechanism.

When cited the above passage, the "no king but Christ" type voluntaryists will retort that Paul is referring here only to just and righteous governments and rulers. Those are the only ones which Christians are commanded to "be subject to," they will say.

This is a problem for two reasons: 1. We know as self-owners there has never in history been a "just" ruler, as we all own ourselves and our property, and things like taxation (extortion) are never justified. Every ruler is always "a terror to good works" in some way or another. And 2. Paul says quite plainly that there is "no power but of God." This means every single ruler and government, good or ill, is put there by the creator of the universe and must be obeyed. This idea is backed up by a parallel verse in 1 Peter:

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

1 Peter 2:13,14

Notice that it says — and also in the Greek original — "every" ordinance. There is no qualifier here. However, the Christian will likely point out that the author immediately says the reader should submit as if to those that are sent to punish evildoers. "Aha!" they say. "You see, Peter here is only referring to those governing authorities that are actually punishing evil and doing good."

But a little further reading proves this isn't the case at all. The early Christians were meant to submit only "as unto." In other words, submit as if all authorities are righteous, whether they actually are or not. Peter's words a just little further on in the same chapter prove this in no uncertain terms:

Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. 

1 Peter 2:18

The author goes on to talk about how it is honorable to serve an unjust master. Again, such ideas are alien to voluntaryism. We are self-owners and opposed to all slavery and rule by violent force. If one thinks it somehow honorable to serve a tyrant in long-suffering misery, that's fine, but it's certainly no command for any self-owning advocate of non-violence.

And, of course, we find other folks in the Bible disobeying the commands of Paul and Peter, anyway. See, for example Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt against Pharoah's commands (a pharaoh ostensibly placed in power by God), and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing to bow to the gods of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

So which is it? Well, the book won't help you, as usual. You have to think for yourself. But in case these two passages in Romans and 1 Peter aren't enough, there are virtually unlimited other reasons the Bible and Voluntaryism are diametrically opposed.

Slavery is not condemned in either the Old or New Testaments of the Christian Bible. In fact, the so-called "chosen people," the Jews, were commanded to take slaves of foreign nations and to keep their children as literal property and possessions. Sex trafficking, child rape, infanticide, human sacrifice and other violence is either tacitly approved of or explicitly commanded, or directly done by "Yahweh" (aka Jesus).

One horrific example:

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Numbers 31:17,18

Note that "children" there also appears in the Hebrew. These are child sex slaves.

Another example:

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Samuel 15:3

I wonder what aggression those infants and sucklings had committed. Or what crime the infant son of David had committed when God enacted a post-birth abortion and took the poor guy out. It's interesting that people are punished for the sins of others, but in typical gaslighting fashion for this mixed up book, God also says they are not.

There are also numerous obvious instances of human sacrifice in the book, which many dogmatists do wild mental gymnastics to avoid admitting. Merely claiming that sacrifice of humans to "pagan gods" was condemned in certain passages isn't enough to erase the story of Jephthah's daughter, or this clear cut instruction from Leviticus, for example:

Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death.

Leviticus 27:28,29

All the above obviously flies directly in the face of individual self-ownership, and results in a dangerous moral relativism ("violence is okay if my personal God does it") which is an abomination to free human beings everywhere.

I submit to you, honest-hearted Voluntaryist Christians, that moral relativism of this sort has no place in any sound philsophy. It is extremely dangerous. What's more, you have NO LOGICAL GROUNDS TO OPPOSE the trans movement sexualizing children, mRNA-jab-induced population culling, or any of the other horrors you claim to stand against today, if you accept the infanticide and child rape in the Bible as "God's will" and thus acceptable. After all, does anything at all happen outside your omniscient and omnipotent God's will? If not, then on what grounds do you stand opposed? Don't forget:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isaiah 45:7

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what anyone says. Not doing what a supposed god says regardless of what is right. Any voluntaryist who says Christ (who claims to be the Yahweh of the Old Testament and whom Christians also identify as such) can sometimes make violence okay, is in a precarious spot, as all it would take for that individual to violate the self-ownership of another human would be to become convinced that "God commanded it." This is the peak of moral relativism and not a logical position. As one scholar has noted:

The same people who preach against the evils of abortion in the name of absolute, objective morality throw their absolute, objective morality out the window in order to defend the child-murders of an ancient tribe who thought they were doing the will of God. That's what's most shocking to me.

Finally, if the Christian answer is to completely give up and cease relying at all on our own reason (which is ostensibly god-given as the Bible says to "test everything" and that wisdom is "open to reason") — if the answer is to give up on this reason which we use to judge and condemn the holy scriptures of other religions, the trustworthiness of potential friends and business partners, and the safety of various situations in life (i.e. "My reason tells me if I walk off that cliff I will die") — if we give up on that completely (and this does NOT mean leaning on our own understanding in the egoic, hubristic sense), then there would be no reason to give special credence to the book called the Bible, or to even attempt to elaborate on the nature of "God" at all, for good or ill. So there is a glaring performative contradiction and hypocrisy there:

The Christian Voluntaryist attempts to use reason to prove violence is wrong, while also maintaining that reason is useless when it comes to understanding what is ultimately right or wrong, in regard to force. After all, "God" would be the ultimate reason, and "God" is simultaneously impossible to understand and not to be questioned. Conveniently for the religions of the world, and sadly for those of us opposed to violence, this trump card requires no logical proof or rationality. Just a relative feeling to justify whatever violence is necessary to dominate others.

This is an unspeakably major boon to statism and the violence of the state, which unceasingly and craftily leverage these religious rejections of reason, and people's "blind faith," to coerce compliance. 

Don't be a good sheep. Disobey evil.