Free Republic

Commentary: The indifferent man -- part 1 By Uwe Siemon-Netto UPI Religious Affairs Editor PARIS, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Editor's note: This is the first installment of a new United Press International series on postmodern man for whom Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture in Rome, has coined a new term: "homo indifferens," the indifferent man -- indifferent to any particular religious doctrine. -- To believe that man has no need for God, said the German philosopher Max Scheler (1874-1928), amounts to "metaphysical carelessness." But this carelessness is precisely the property of postmodern man whom the...

Modern liberalism, even as its philosophers hold that no act is objectively sinful, treats hypocrisy as a serious sin. Why? If nothing is sinful, why is hypocrisy sinful? Hypocrisy is sinful -- that is, damaging to the soul -- if the moral principles the hypocrite voices then violates are true. But liberals tell us those principles aren't true, that humans can depart from them without damage to their character. So what's the moral problem with violating a moral code liberals consider false in the first place? Hypocrisy is a moral problem, but liberals can't reach that conclusion on the basis...