7 November, 2007
Ultimately how do you judge what is moral? If morals are supernatural gifts from God, when we are faced with a novel dilemma, we have no way of judging what is the moral way to act. Either God has given us the gift of moral judgement, or He has not—we are good or we are wicked through the grace of God, and our choices depend on that. If, on the other hand, morality is devised by humans living together to provide individual security, then the moral act is the one that causes least harm, or does more good, for other people. A terrorist throws a bomb into a restaurant. He is plainly immoral. He is harming innocent people for his own personal reasons. A waiter falls on to the bomb, smothering the blast with his own body. He dies but saves twenty others. He is a hero. It is an obvious and extreme case, but the morality of it is that, though the waiter lost his own life, he saved all those others. The most extreme such case is that of Christ, whom Christians say died to save the whole of humanity! So, morality is the welfare of other people in society. The instinct is to preserve oneself. That is what a solitary animal would do. The moral animal tries to save others, tries to be a Christ!
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Adelphiasophism, Christian Sceptic | Tagged: AskWhy!, humanity, morality, social, society, welfare of others | 
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Posted by mikemagee
Posted by mikemagee 
