5 Myths About Equality that Australians Believe
Speaking a word against the ‘equality’ crusaders in the modern age is tantamount to blasphemy. To insist that inequality is natural is to be labeled a ‘bigot’ who doesn’t understand the evolving nature of society and how far we have progressed.
In fact, unless you argue for ‘equality’ between men and women and ‘equality’ between cultures,’ among the many polarized dimensions of society, you are prone to being social-media mobbed, harassed, and shunned as someone who is ‘regressive’ and a ‘fundamentalist.’ Nonetheless, if there is to be any meaningful discourse on this subject, name-calling must be avoided, lest our discussion devolve into a state of barbaric rivalry.
Here are five myths we as Australians need to stop believing about equality:
Myth #1: All Religions are Equal
The only people who believe that all religions are equal are those who are not themselves religious. A rudimentary knowledge of world religions reveals that religions are mutually exclusive. That is to say that if the claims of the Qur’an are true, then Islam is the only true religion, and the others are by definition, lies. Similarly, if Christianity is true, then by definition, all other religions are false. Why is this so? Because the founders of the each religion claimed exclusivity, meaning that all other religions are but deceptions.
For example, consider the disparate views of Jesus that three major world religions have:
Islam |
Christianity |
Orthodox Judaism |
|
Nature of Jesus |
A human man who was a prophet of God |
Jesus is God Himself in human flesh |
A blasphemous deceiver who misled many |
Jesus’ Death |
Muslims do not believe that Jesus was killed. Because He did not die, Muslims do not believe that He rose from the dead. The idea of Jesus bearing our sins is shirk – blasphemy. |
Jesus was killed on a Roman cross and bore the sins of His people. Three days later, He rose from the dead, and all those who trust in Him will follow Him. |
Jesus was killed because he was threatening the social cohesiveness of society by challenging the authority of the Jewish and Roman leaders. |
The 3 Major World Religions’ View of Jesus
One need not be a theological scholar to acknowledge that religions make different claims, and therefore they cannot all be true at the same time. Because they claim different things, they cannot all be equal in any meaningful sense.
Myth #2: Men and Women are Equal
We live in a society where women and men are often said to be equal in value, and rightly so. Many nations believe in the oppression of women, which is morally evil and deserves our condemnation.
However, the intellectual elites have insisted that because men and women are equal in value, we should expect their lives to be equal in outcomes. Nonetheless, if women and men are different, which they are, shouldn’t we expect differences in their life choices and behaviours, leading to different outcomes?
Here are just three spheres in which these differences are manifest:
i) Biology – Men have a higher percentage of lean muscle mass than women. Women have 6 to 11 percent more body fat than men. Men have wider shoulders while women have wider hips. Females often have a larger hippocampus (human memory centre), while men have more gray brain matter (information and action processing centres).
ii) Children – Women can bear children; men cannot. This impacts time-off work, the desire to stay at home and spend time with a child, and involves other physical and hormonal changes that impact the decisions women make.
iii) Sport – Sport is an arena that so undeniably reveals natural gender inequalities. The men’s 100m sprint world record is 9.58 seconds, whereas it is 10.49 seconds for women. The world record for men’s high jump is 2.45m, whereas it is 2.09m for women. This isn’t a ‘social construction’ – it is a consequence of differing biological structures and capabilities.
It is clear that while women and men are absolutely and unequivocally valued equally in the eyes of God, to believe that men and women are equal in every other respect is to deny reality. Moreover, the notion that gender is distinct from sex is a Marxist idea that has its only basis in radical sociology textbooks. Rather than denying the differences between men and women, we should acknowledge and celebrate them. Only then will we be able to truly celebrate ‘diversity.’
Myth #3: Wealth Inequality is a Moral Evil
Complaining about ‘wealth inequality’ has become a sanitized form of envy and coveting. Rather than appreciating what one has, it is easier to look at those who have more and complain, than it is to view one’s own privileged position, and bless others with the resources and time one has. Rather than appreciating what one has, it’s easier to look at those who have more and complain that they are committing a moral evil by being ‘greedy.’ As economist Thomas Sowell once said,
“Envy was once considered to be one of the 7 deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, ‘social justice.’”
Contrary to popular belief, it is not morally evil that Bill Gates has a net worth of $93.9 billion USD, and that he is in the world’s top 0.01% of incomes and assets. Because the Marxist worldview views wealth inequality as a moral evil, it insists that Bill Gates has exploited the poor to gain his riches.
However, Bill Gates didn’t steal this money from anyone — he merely engaged in a large number of market transactions, selling products that he invented and produced. The act of entrepreneurship is not without risks, and indeed, Bill Gates risked a lot to get where he is today. And we also don’t often hear of how generous Gates has been with the billions of dollars that he has kindly given to a number of charities and foundations.
So how do we understand wealth inequality and disparities between incomes then?
Well here are the facts, particular to the Australian context:
i) Average Wage: Ironically, the average annual wage of an Australian in 2018 was $82,436. Those who earn this much are in the top ‘0.26%’ of the world’s income.
ii) Minimum Wage: An individual living on the minimum wage in Australia earns $37,398 per annum. This places them in the top 2.17% of the world’s richest people.
Which is to say — rather than constantly looking for the ‘top 1%’ who ‘deserve to pay their fair share,’ why not look at yourself as the global 1% and then seek to be generous to those who are less fortunate with the money that you have. In a nation that is richly blessed with material prosperity, we are not ‘impoverished’ — we must stop being entitled people who constantly abdicate the responsibility to care for others to those who earn more than us.
It is not morally virtuous for us to merely insist that those who have more than us should give away more of their money and assets, when we ourselves are in the global 1 per cent.
Myth #4: Self-Profession = Religious Adherent
The hyper-individualism of Australia has caused us to believe that a person’s self-profession of a religious faith is tantamount to faithful obedience. We live in a postmodern nation where religious beliefs rarely, if ever, translate into behaviour. What I mean is that if someone calls themselves a Christian, or a Muslim for that matter, we have been conditioned to believe that they are who they say they are, regardless of whether their life matches their profession.
Merely claiming to be a Christian doesn’t make me a Christian. Likewise, claiming to be a Muslim doesn’t make me a Muslim, as was clear in the case of Sinead O’Connor. What matters is not who you identify with, but whether you submit yourself to the original religious texts that the religion is founded upon. It is not bigotry to insist that someone demonstrate the extent of their profession of faith before you believe them. Likewise, it is not unreasonable to judge someone’s profession with how they live.
Often Australians will call someone an Islamic fundamentalist because they follow the Qur’an literally, and they will do the same to the Christians who believe that the Bible is the Word of God, calling them fundamentalist Christians. In fact, while the majority of Australians would say they believe in God (often the Judeo-Christian God), this ‘belief’ has little to no bearing on their life. The extent of religiosity of most Australians extends to attending Christmas and Easter services, while their Bibles collect dust on the shelves.
For this reason, Australians can’t bear the idea that religious texts actually transform the way people live, and therefore seek to attribute any behaviour they don’t like to some external ‘oppressive force.’ This is the reason why when terrorist incidents occur, it is hardly ever the Qur’an or Hadiths that are engaged with, but rather the ‘poverty’ that the individual grew up in, mental health issues, or the ‘pressures’ they experienced as a youth. The way many Australians view the Bible — as an old book that has no authority over their lives — is the way that Australians think traditionalist Muslims view the Qur’an.
One of primary issues with this method of thinking is that Australians believe other cultures and groups view religion the way they do — through a postmodern lens. As it is, other cultures and societies place such a greater emphasis on religion, as it is thread that holds the social fabric together. It is unthinkable to Western intellectuals that the core beliefs of Hinduism would be the basis for their caste system, just as Islamic extremism would be a natural outcome of submitting to the Qur’an and the Hadiths.
Professing to believe is not the same as believing, and Australians must understand this if we are to understand our friends from other cultures and religions. It is also imperative to acknowledge if we are to accurately evaluate the threats posed to Australian democracy and society by other belief systems.
Myth #5: All Cultures are Equal
This myth is a natural outflowing of Myth #4 — the belief that self-profession is the same as belief. Many have fallen captive to the idea that all cultures are equal, even though no one truly believes this in practice. This idea has been proliferated through schools and universities through the ‘Doctrine of Multiculturalism.’
Consider just three ways in which other cultures have values that are not equal to ours, nor desirable:
i) Female genital mutilation (FGM) occurs in 29 countries worldwide. Would anyone dare say that we should adopt such a practice in the view of being a society that celebrates ‘equality’ of cultures?
ii) 650 million women alive today were married off as children, and many of these marriages were forced. Should Australia embrace child marriage in the pursuit of creating a more ‘diverse’ and ‘equal’ society?
iii) Changing from the national religion (Islam) to another religion is punishable by death in 13 Muslim nations. Should Australia allow apostasy to be punishable by death, because another culture esteems it so?
Australian society is not perfect, and the Australian culture — if there is such a unified culture — is certainly not perfect. However, the notion that all cultures are not equal is a myth that is perpetuated by intellectuals in ivory towers and is a typical example of virtue signaling. Rather than asserting that all cultures are equal, we ought to compare cultures to the only true standard of right and wrong — the Bible — lest we descend into a state of utter chaos.
As the Prophet Samuel wrote,
“In those days, Israel had no king and every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
(Judges 21:25)
Historically speaking, one of the strengths of the West has been its ability to reason without shutting down debate; engage with worldviews and critique them. Rather than flippantly using loaded terms such as ‘equality,’ ‘social justice,’ and ‘rights,’ we ought to think carefully about how we discuss issues, understanding that there are greater issues at stake than meets the eye.
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