Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Issue of Morallity

Many people in this nation would readily admit that there is a problem with modern standards and behavior. Many are disgusted at the laws we are passing. Many more are disgusted with the conduct, or in some cases lack thereof, exhibited by our country's leaders. Many want to see things change, but the true problem is almost never addressed.
Why the sudden plunge in behavior and standards? In all probability, it wasn't so sudden of a change. Our society has been gradually worn away. It all started with the very first fluctuation of moral standards, whenever that was. As soon as morals were demoted to a matter of personal opinion, our fate was sealed. We are now on an almost irreversible path to self destruction, much like ancient Rome. As soon as you remove the source of absolute moral truth, things will go downhill.
Many people argue that the only sources of morality are religion and personal opinion. I don't disagree. While there are some natural inhibitions we follow by instinct, most of what we know as far as right and wrong comes from religious teaching. However, this doesn't change things. We still need an absolute source of morality. In fact, America's original laws were all based on the Bible and Christian morals. This wasn't discriminatory, it was logical. People of other religions could still practice as they wished, since these laws were common among all religions. No murder, no stealing, no cheating, etc; these are basic laws. The problem came when we started tampering with them under grounds that they were too strict, discriminatory, or unconstitutional. Granted, some laws such as those allowing slavery had to be changed. But if one looks into the reasons for racial equality, they are mostly Christian. So these changes were merely an improvement on our laws, moving us closer to religious morality. The opposite is true with laws allowing gay marriage, abortion, and the like. These are the laws moving us away from morality, these are the issue and a contributing factor to our nation's overall state.
I am not saying that we should be a theocracy, or even go so far as to impose strict Christian laws. Freedom of religion must always be maintained. What I am trying to say is that religious morality should be the predominant guideline in lawmaking. It's obvious that a law requiring people to go to church, or save sex for marriage, or tithe to a church would be way too far. These are laws unique to Christianity, and so making them national law would be infringing freedom of religion. But ignoring a basic law like “don't murder,” which his common to all major religions, is a bad idea. The legalization of abortion, for example, did exactly this. We are slowly lowering our standards, and if we don't stop, we won't have any left.
We need a definite source of morals. This doesn't necessarily have to be the Bible, but there has to be something we bass our laws on, and Christianity is what we've started with. Failure to stop this decline will result in the downfall of our country, and possibly the world.

21 comments:

  1. There was a lot of thought put into this post.

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  2. I thought your post was interesting, and I definitely think that we need morals in our lives.

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  3. I think that our morals have changed and we should refocus them on important things and not just material things.

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  4. Morality, at least to me, is all based on personal opinion. To some, one thing might be considered terrible, while to others it might be ok. It's all a matter of how you personally view things.

    Good post!

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  5. Great post and everyone needs some morals in their lives.

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  6. Morality should become a part of every person's life. It is especially important in today's world.

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  7. we should think again about what moral really is... especially youth people..

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  8. Good post!! I agree with Longfellow.

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  9. Good post! I think it is really important for people to have morals in their lives.

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  10. There are basic morality that have to be protected if their are human beings. However, there are some thing that have to be changed by the changing of times.

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  11. Good post! Opinion plays a big role in this issue, but I agree with the author.

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  12. I really like this post. I'm kind of a prude,and I really think the youth of today needs to be instilled with a better moral compus than we have.

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  13. Good post. I agree with this post nowadays morality is a big issue.

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  14. Morals are basically set by each individual person, and thier religion. Good post

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  15. I really enjoyed this post and felt the author had a lot of good poionts. A lot of thought was put into this!

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  16. I liked your post, and agree that people need better morals in their lives.

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  17. Good post! I also think that morality is based on personal opinion. Good topic.

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  18. Morals are extremely important in everyone's lives.

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  19. I completely agree with this post. If religion didn't create the society's we have now, religion sure did help shape them so why are we shying away from this?

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  20. i agree with this post. Im a strong Lutheran.

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  21. Good post, thanks for sharing.

    Crane's post fits into much larger historical dialogue which America is famous for - calls for reformation. From the very first days of this country, there have been several cycles of moral reformation and subsequent falling away from those principles. Most, if not all, of these reformations have been Christian in character, because the majority of the population was Christian in faith.

    What remains to be seen is whether than demographic will continue to be true in the 21st century.

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