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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

A World Without a Moral Compass

I have always thought that we have inherited a sense of right and wrong. I believed that the righteousness by which God created us was the foundation of our existence. We knew what was right by this righteousness and it would eventually prevail in the face of evil. I now have doubts about this belief.

I am discovering that many people do not know the difference between right and wrong. They see sins as choices. There is no good or evil just a choice on whether something seems good for them. The difference is how they are judged; not whether their actions have some higher law which determines right and wrong.

Thus, the heroes in our plays and movies are often more flawed than the villains. Often, a portion of the audience is secretly rooting for this villain. They so often show the justification for their evil.

Thus, we often attack the victims rather than the ones who are guilty. A shooting rampage at a school is blamed on those who laughed at the shooter. Robbing the bank is blamed on the rich cats who have driven the economy into the ground. We can't seem to fix who is right and who is wrong because we no longer have a sense of right and wrong.

Right and wrong is now determined by who and how many people believe as you do. If the majority thinks that bad language is fine, it will be defended as free speech. If a majority thinks that marriage infidelity is fine, it will be supported as a release from feeling confined.

The lack of this moral compass of knowing wrong from right gives us a very unstable world. It means we cannot count on being defended when we suffer a wrong. You have to know whether or not it is wrong before you can be defended. It means that we will stand still when someone is being hurt. We will say, "Its not my fight," and fail to recognize that we have joined the ranks of those who do not know right from wrong.

Mankind will always create a sense of right and wrong but it cannot simply be that which the majority favors. Right and wrong must be transcendent or it will go the way of mankind's nature. We are naturally selfish. Having no governing authority will allow us to extend our selfishness.

The Bible says that there is a way that seems right to a man but the end of it is destruction. Mankind will not have to wait for a giant meteor to hit the planet or any of the other disasters heralded by popular movies. We can destroy ourselves from within. We are certainly on that path.

If you think I am hopeless, you are wrong. I have a genuine solution. It is very revolutionary. But that's tomorrow's blog . . . .

1 comment:

RAJ said...

Gotta disagree on this one. I think people today, especially our youth, are very aware of the difference between right and wrong. I see it not only in my own children, but in others as well.
Unfortunately, because of our "real time" liberal media, we are constantly bombarded on TV and the internet with garbage that promotes what feels good and what is politically correct versus what is right.
My kids are very open with us and tell us things that go on in their lives and at school. It is certainly far different than when I was in the exact same school. It is clear that they do understand what is right and wrong. It then becomes the decision of the individual as to whether they agree with the issue at hand, accept the issue at hand, or even participate.
Case in point, one teacher was becoming very negatively outspoken concerning faith,religion, and the validity of the bible. My daughter was quite offended. Frankly, I heard enough that I was about to pay both the teacher and the principal a visit. While you would think most teenagers might sit back and simply agree with the teacher rather than ruffle feathers, my daughter found out that many of the other students in class were quite upset as well. Various religions, various backgrounds, but they all knew right from wrong. Many of them began to speak out against the teacher and some other students as their faith was tested. Word spread quickly that there were some very angry parents about to visit the school and the teacher quickly backed down. I must say I was proud of each and every student.
The world often seems to promote what is wrong, and it won't be getting better any time soon. We all know what is right and what is wrong. We can conform, or we can stand firm in our values. It is up to each of us as to which path we take...