I found this article on religious fundamentalism and moral relativism to be quite interesting.
It’s a topic I’ve seen mentioned before, particularly when a skeptic points out an objectionable passage in the Bible and gets a reply basically saying, “It was a different time!” They’re not entirely wrong; we DO have to evaluate people in the context of their time to a certain extent. That isn’t to say, however, that some things were ever okay, even if they were normal for their time and place. Yes, there are certain things that are relative. People could express racist ideas while still generally promoting tolerance. I remember learning in high school about how Voltaire was very liberal and accepting in his society, yet he was still severely antisemitic. And if you look at something like slavery, not all slavery throughout history was equally cruel, but owning another person was still never right. It just becomes even weirder and more hypocritical when dealing with religion, because God isn’t supposed to ever be wrong. If the Bible is just as applicable as a guide to life and morality today as it was when it was written, why does it say slavery is acceptable and stoning people to death was a necessity in some cases? The people of that time might not have known better on their own, but it seems like they would have if they’d been in direct contact with God. Why would the all-knowing arbiter of morality change the rules, if his law is perfect in the first place? Yet that’s pretty much exactly what we see in the New Testament. Jesus tells his disciples that Moses allowed the Jews to get divorced because of the hardness of their hearts, but really nobody should divorce at all. And it’s pretty common to interpret Peter’s vision as an indication that Christians don’t have to keep kosher. Why would these laws originally be presented a covenant forever, but later no longer apply? You’d think God would have gotten it right the first time.
The other issue with religion and moral relativism is that, as I’ve addressed before, God doesn’t appear to be subject to his own law, and he can also make exceptions when he feels like it. If God’s law is absolute, how can either of those be true?