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What is the moral standard?
Posted by Derrick
on
17:32
This may be a bit of a rambling post but I hope you will stick with it. I was talking with my wife this morning about Harry Potter of all things. She and I disagree about it. I like it, she doesn't. It's really that simple.
We got onto the topic of films and what we would let any children that we may have watch. I personally would never let my children go to a cinema to see a film that I thought was inappropriate for them. However, what we noticed was that films we saw as young adults, films which were considered more grown up then are quite tame these days. When did this change? I hear words on the television before nine o clock (the supposed watershed) that I never heard on the TV at all when I was growing up. The standard of some pop performances in TV is also scandalous. I do not want to sound like an old fuddy duddy but it is certainly something worth thinking about.
Society today seems to get its morals from wherever it wants to. There is a pick and mix attitude towards our social behaviour.
I will say that there are many things which are getting better though. Fair Trade is an excellent idea. Products not tested on animals are now a lot more common. Responsible farming, kind environmentalism, ethical buying and many other things make the whole consumer business much better. Society is democratic and encourages equality in everything we do and surely this is commendable.
Is this enough though? Can society really go on living in a way which encourages thoughts about where we source our food etc but which removes traditional values and replaces them with a belief that all ideas must be treated with equality.
Moral relativism is, in my opinion, a danger. The idea that there is no truth is a misnomer. All things cannot be equally true, it's simply impossible. If I say that it's wrong to hurt someone and someone else says that it is ok to hurt them then we cannot both be right. There has to be some moral truth and we need to see what this is. We as Christians know that the ultimate in terms of truth is Jesus himself. What he says is the truth and we need to do our best to follow this.
Now many people say that they think Jesus was a great moral teacher and had a good deal to offer the world. Everybody knows that his great moral law was to say 'treat others as you would like to be treated yourself'. This is the "Golden Rule"that can be found in almost all religions and forms the base of many people's ethical life. It is sometimes transmuted as do as you like as long as you don't hurt anyone else, it's admirable to follow these words of Jesus. The problem is, this is not what he says at all.
So what does he say? Matthew 22 says
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
All to often the first half of this is left out. It's not the done thing these days to follow the whim of some God and He is left out of this. However, we cannot leave Him out of this. He is the first thing and the last thing. We need to realise that loving God with our whole heart and soul and mind is the first commandment. The second is to love your neighbour as you love yourself.
This modern world where pornography is normalised and allowed on our TV screens, where abortion is for some a method of birth control, where traditional values such as marriage and family are sidelined in the name of equality and where anything goes, is a world that does not love God. If we did, we would never do some of these things. Life would be sacred, we would want to live in loving and steady relationships and we wouldn't need to objectify anyone else.
That is the problem with the modern ethical standards, they aim high and almost hit their targets at times. However, they are aiming for the wrong thing. By aiming at the second of the two commandments that Jesus gave us, they may think they are doing the right thing but they miss the most important of the commandments.
We, as Christians, need to ensure that we remember that before loving our neighbour and loving ourselves comes loving God.
We got onto the topic of films and what we would let any children that we may have watch. I personally would never let my children go to a cinema to see a film that I thought was inappropriate for them. However, what we noticed was that films we saw as young adults, films which were considered more grown up then are quite tame these days. When did this change? I hear words on the television before nine o clock (the supposed watershed) that I never heard on the TV at all when I was growing up. The standard of some pop performances in TV is also scandalous. I do not want to sound like an old fuddy duddy but it is certainly something worth thinking about.
Society today seems to get its morals from wherever it wants to. There is a pick and mix attitude towards our social behaviour.
I will say that there are many things which are getting better though. Fair Trade is an excellent idea. Products not tested on animals are now a lot more common. Responsible farming, kind environmentalism, ethical buying and many other things make the whole consumer business much better. Society is democratic and encourages equality in everything we do and surely this is commendable.
Is this enough though? Can society really go on living in a way which encourages thoughts about where we source our food etc but which removes traditional values and replaces them with a belief that all ideas must be treated with equality.
Moral relativism is, in my opinion, a danger. The idea that there is no truth is a misnomer. All things cannot be equally true, it's simply impossible. If I say that it's wrong to hurt someone and someone else says that it is ok to hurt them then we cannot both be right. There has to be some moral truth and we need to see what this is. We as Christians know that the ultimate in terms of truth is Jesus himself. What he says is the truth and we need to do our best to follow this.
Now many people say that they think Jesus was a great moral teacher and had a good deal to offer the world. Everybody knows that his great moral law was to say 'treat others as you would like to be treated yourself'. This is the "Golden Rule"that can be found in almost all religions and forms the base of many people's ethical life. It is sometimes transmuted as do as you like as long as you don't hurt anyone else, it's admirable to follow these words of Jesus. The problem is, this is not what he says at all.
So what does he say? Matthew 22 says
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
All to often the first half of this is left out. It's not the done thing these days to follow the whim of some God and He is left out of this. However, we cannot leave Him out of this. He is the first thing and the last thing. We need to realise that loving God with our whole heart and soul and mind is the first commandment. The second is to love your neighbour as you love yourself.
This modern world where pornography is normalised and allowed on our TV screens, where abortion is for some a method of birth control, where traditional values such as marriage and family are sidelined in the name of equality and where anything goes, is a world that does not love God. If we did, we would never do some of these things. Life would be sacred, we would want to live in loving and steady relationships and we wouldn't need to objectify anyone else.
That is the problem with the modern ethical standards, they aim high and almost hit their targets at times. However, they are aiming for the wrong thing. By aiming at the second of the two commandments that Jesus gave us, they may think they are doing the right thing but they miss the most important of the commandments.
We, as Christians, need to ensure that we remember that before loving our neighbour and loving ourselves comes loving God.
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