Are We Equipped?
Are we?
I believed that we were born with a moral compass and don’t need to think of a fire in hell to realize stealing is wrong!
I figured if I was, anyone could be! This has nothing to do with one's IQ. You don’t believe me? Just watch “I am Sam”.
Trying to be candid once and for all, I have read the Bible and the Qoran. I have been to church, mosque and synagogue and compared religions. I respect people who have moral values and firmly stick by them. But what I found most amazing about all religions was that they have one thing in common.
That is called common sense. No matter what cover you choose, at the end of the day if you don’t have common sense, your religion is nothing but a title justifying superstition!
If you can’t understand why stealing, killing and lying is bad, you have certainly gotten the short end of the stick in creation!
Once I learned more about world religions, I felt hopeful and optimistic to see that human kind is well equipped with a moral compass whether Jesus really spoke in the crib or not!
On the other hand what made me extremely hopeless was the fact that more than half the population of the earth don’t bother dusting off their moral compass and blindly follow a road that seems to promise rewards!
Religion is not bad if it doesn’t kill your common sense. That’s when you get lost, even if you have a map.
For me, it’s all about cause and effect. It’s about optimism, using my compass and enjoying the results. Life is a challenge. You can win if you are serious about it. I don’t think that I need a certain title to do the right thing every step of the way.
Titles carry limitations and I don’t wish to frame my soul in a painted picture. I would like to find my own path and leave a trail, because I believe that I am equipped.
I am a believer.
posted by The City Gal @ Wednesday, August 03, 2005
2 comments
2 Comments:
I am a non-believer...
Sky joon,
Your questions - in this and other posts - are very interesting. So interesting that mankind has been asking them from himself forever. I dare to say that this game started when the first of the Homo sapiens developed the first imagination of a non-substantiated concept; possibly after he had had some magic mushroom in his soup by mistake! (I'm afraid I don't know about other species). The most controversial of all, to my opinion, was metaphysics.
This was how philosophy started, you know, with many questions. Such as you have in mind in this post: Do we have a morality compass? Is it absolute or relative? If killing is bad, is it always bad or just sometimes? And if we are equipped with a compass, does it show the same North for everyone?
Quite the contrary to your point of view - though I appreciate your efforts to learn Semitic religions - it is not fair to compare Islam, Christianity and Judaism, find common values in them and conclude they are universal. This is cheating!
There's a lot to say about this but best of all is this:
…zin namat beehoodeh migoft aan daghal… (Rumi)
Ultimately, I believe that it is the individual who makes the decision to take a moral or immoral course of action, not his religion.
Wow! Sky, you are attracting very intelligent members of Homo Sapiens spiecies to you blog!! Congratulations!
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