Why Be Moral?
There is a contradiction that occurs when people who claim there is no God try to live moral lives. If one does not believe in an absolute standard of good and evil there is no reason to try to live morally. After all, morality needs standards if we’re going to know what it means. Some argue that we make up these standards on our own. If this were so, how could we ever determine in such a diverse world whose standards to accept? This of course leads us into the contradiction that is relativism. If there is no absolute truth there can be no absolute morality.
Many religions use morality as means of attaining salvation. Christ on the other hand taught that salvation comes through His redemptive work on the cross. So if being good doesn’t save us then what is the purpose of morality? The answer is given in Matthew 5:16 when Jesus tells us to let our light shine before men, that they may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven (emphasis added). So the goal of morality is to point people to Jesus.
This is very humbling. Too often we are so proud of how good we can be and we fall into this trap of thinking we deserve the great things that come our way. As if the reason we do good is to receive good things. It’s not easy to do good when we know we will not receive credit; but it is moral.
posted by Ernie Morales at
8:06 PM
3 Comments:
Ernie,
Sociology teaches us that what we view as right or wrong is taught to us by parents, family, teachers, media, etc. It called a "social normative". But right and wrong vary from one culture to another, so we should be tolerant of other peoples' mores. What do you have to say about this?
Shelley
Check out this quote from G.K. Chesterton:
"All denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind and the modern skeptic doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he write one book complaining the imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then write another book, a novel in which he insults it himself. As a politician he will cry out that war is a waste of life life, and then as a philosopher that all life is a waste of time...The man of this school goes first to a political meeting where he complains that savages were treated as beasts. Then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is forever engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt becomes practically useless for purpose of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything."
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), 41.
LIke shelley said we learn right and wrong from our parents but it changes as society changes so some people might not know what right and wrong is
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