Morality speaks of a system of behavior in regards to standards of right or wrong behavior. The word carries the concepts of: (1) moral standards, with regard to behavior; (2) moral responsibility, referring to our conscience; and (3) a moral identity, or one who is capable of right or wrong action. Common synonyms include ethics, principles, virtue, and goodness. Morality has become a complicated issue in the multi-cultural world we live in today. Let's explore what morality is, how it affects our behavior, our conscience, our society, and our ultimate destiny.
Morality describes the principles that govern our behavior. Without these principles in place, societies cannot survive for long. In today's world, morality is frequently thought of as belonging to a particular religious point of view, but by definition, we see that this is not the case. Everyone adheres to a moral doctrine of some kind. Morality as it relates to our behavior is important on three levels. Renowned thinker, scholar and author C.S. Lewis defines them as: (1) to ensure fair play and harmony between individuals; (2) to help make us good people in order to have a good society; and (3) to keep us in a good relationship with the power that created us. Based on this definition, it's clear that our beliefs are critical to our moral behavior.
On Point 1, Professor Lewis says most reasonable people agree. By Point 2, however, we begin to see problems occurring. Consider the popular philosophy "I'm not hurting anyone but myself," frequently used to excuse bad personal choices. How can we be the good people we need to be if we persist in making these choices, and how will that result not affect the rest of our society? Bad personal choices do hurt others. Point 3 is where most disagreement surfaces. While the majority of the world's population believes in God, or at least in a god, the question of Creation, as a theory of origins, is definitely hotly debated in today's society.
A recent report in Psychology Today concluded: "The most significant predictor of a person's moral behavior may be religious commitment. People who consider themselves very religious were least likely to report deceiving their friends, having extramarital affairs, cheating on their expenses accounts, or even parking illegally." Based on this finding, what we believe about Creation has a decided effect on our moral thinking and our behavior. Without belief in a Creator, the only option that seems to be left is to adhere to moral standards we make up for ourselves. Unless we live in a dictatorial society, we are free to choose our own personal moral code. But where does that freedom come from? The view of many who do not adhere to Creation is that morality is a creation of humanity, designed to meet the need of stable societies. All kinds of life are in a process of deciding between life and death, choosing what to do with power and/or authority. This ultimately leads to a system of virtues and values. The question is: what happens when our choices conflict with each other? What if something I believe I need in order for my life to continue results in death for you? If we do not have an absolute standard of truth, chaos and conflict will result as we are all left to our own devices and desires.
Morality impacts our everyday decisions, and those choices are directed by our conscience. Again, we must decide for ourselves where the conscience originates. Many people hold to the idea that the conscience is a matter of our hearts, that concepts of right, wrong, and fairness are "programmed" in each of us. This is in keeping with the writings of Paul the Apostle, who points out that even those who do not believe in God frequently obey God's laws as given in the Ten Commandments: "for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them" (Romans 2:14-15 (NKJV)). Again, those who do not believe in God are left with the only possible conclusion they can come to - that our decisions are based solely on our need to survive. What we call our conscience, then, would be based on learned behavior, rather than part of a Divine design.
Therefore the world must return to the days of having morality if we are going to deal with the violence, poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic plaguing so many people. Morality is more than just a right or wrong issue. In fact it is something that can’t be governed but many governments try to govern it. If morality is to be governed as so many try to make it out to be instead of what it being an individual responsibility of each and every human being. Therefore the morality of our world is for us as a people to look out for our fellow men and women. We must each want to take care of the sick, the elderly, and the young. The world is filled with issues of right and wrong but we should not fear these issues but we should embrace them.
When we think about morality, it is easy for us to equate it with God’s laws for life but if think about it, morality is simply doing on to other what you want them to do onto you. With that explanation it is understandable why the world needs morality because so many of us aren’t adhering to it and are not trying to adhere to it. In fact the world needs a dose of morality because at the end of the day, our poor can only get better when we as a people start to lend them a hand. In fact it is not only up to us to lend the poor a hand but the poor must be willing to uplift themselves once they receive the helping hands they get.
Morality is about giving, it’s about helping and it’s about caring for others. Too many times, we find our world filled with hate, violence and misery because we all have contributed to it by not speaking up, taking action and fighting against the injustices that plague us a people. It is easy for us to ignore some of the basic principles of life such as freedom, justice, equality and liberty for all. It is these basic principles along with others that should help our world succeed in overcoming war, violence, poverty, illiteracy, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other issues plaguing our society. Morality is more than just right and wrong but it is about doing what’s right for not only ourselves but others.
Morality can conflict with each other and simply asking ourselves is what we are doing good for us as an individual and is it going for the rest of society is not good enough. Because as renowned thinker C. S. Lewis said, we can argue night and day about the fact that what is good for one person might not be good for the rest of us. Nonetheless, we need morality in this world to understand that there is good in society and there is evil but no matter the good and the evil, we as individuals have a responsibility to choose what is right for us first and for society second. The two will always conflict at some point in our everyday lives but we as a society should not be worried about that. What we should be worried about is a society that doesn’t care and is selfish meaning everyone is out to help themselves? That is a society that I fear and I don’t want to see. I know the world has not got to that point where we as individuals only care about our individual selves.
We have not got to that point and we should not get to that point. In fact that is all the more reason why we must have morality reemerge in our society if we are to change the way we deal with many of the issues that we are facing as a society. Morality alone will not solve these issues but individual responsibility right along with morality will help us get steps closer to what we are facing in this world. Morality and individual responsibility can help us eradicate the HIV/AIDS epidemic, root out corruption, weed out poverty and stomp out violence. That is what we must aim to achieve if we are to make this world a better place than how we found it.
EACH ONE, REACH ONE AND TEACH ONE SO THE WORLD CAN PROSPER!
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