I read a story with a couple who had sued a collection agency and lost. According to the article, they claimed to not know who the collection agency was calling about. Cross examination proved the calls were for their son who was living with them. I thought about this story and wondered if the parents had taught the son to be irresponsible or if they were learning from the son to take advantage of the situation. It reminded me of a story I was told by a man who had sold homework papers to his classmates during high school. When his father found out and told him to stop, he convinced his father that someone was going to make money from this so why not him. His father relented and took a cut by charging him rent.
When there are no absolutes or no reason to follow a moral code, the best argument wins. If you're a fan of Star Trek, you know that Vulcans are ruled by logic. In one of the early episodes of Star Trek Voyager, Tuvok proved that an argument could be made to justify an action. It was Captain Janeway who pointed out that regardless of the argument the code had to be followed. It's the same with all morals.
Of course, today’s media doesn’t help. The problem with television and movies is that the bad characters are more interesting than the good characters, because entertainment is built on conflict. It is harder to express conflict when it's not expressed openly, like the internal conflict of conscience which is the battle ground of the moral person or the lack thereof on the part of a moral person because that battle was fought and decided long ago. Entertainment glorifies the bad. We've seen so much more of the bad that we've grown to believe that the bad is the norm. We've evolved from shows that shared actual morals, like Father Knows Best and My Three Sons, to shows that either teach us how to be immoral, like How to Get Away with Murder, or lead us down a spiral of hopelessness, like Criminal Minds. Additionally, entertainment has been teaching us for years that children are wiser than parents, for example in every Disney movie, or that they don't need their parents. It's no wonder when children come to their parents with good arguments that, instead of being the role models and leaders they were meant to be, the parents follow the bad examples of their children.
Only when you and I determine to follow a set of rules that we believe are absolute can we stop the free fall of moral decay this country is in. And, for me, the only way to adhere to a set of rules that consistently challenge my emotions and desires is to embrace a God that is bigger than everything, who loves me, and will guide me through it all to higher moral ground.
The funny thing is that I can hear the groans and curses of those who have been hurt and those who don't want to give up the lies their emotions have made to be truth. They are cursing self-righteousness and pride, as they should! But as I truly give my adherence to a set of rules to God, I am finding that my pride, my self-righteousness is being broken. God is removing the blinders that said ‘I am the exception to the rule that everyone else should be able to follow.’ He is showing me that everyone else has a struggle equal to or greater than mine. God's rules are not about who is better, but building a society we can all thrive in together. While you might argue that God's Old Testament laws can be used as grounds for boasting, the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ, if really adopted, is humbling.
When there are no absolutes or no reason to follow a moral code, the best argument wins. If you're a fan of Star Trek, you know that Vulcans are ruled by logic. In one of the early episodes of Star Trek Voyager, Tuvok proved that an argument could be made to justify an action. It was Captain Janeway who pointed out that regardless of the argument the code had to be followed. It's the same with all morals.
Of course, today’s media doesn’t help. The problem with television and movies is that the bad characters are more interesting than the good characters, because entertainment is built on conflict. It is harder to express conflict when it's not expressed openly, like the internal conflict of conscience which is the battle ground of the moral person or the lack thereof on the part of a moral person because that battle was fought and decided long ago. Entertainment glorifies the bad. We've seen so much more of the bad that we've grown to believe that the bad is the norm. We've evolved from shows that shared actual morals, like Father Knows Best and My Three Sons, to shows that either teach us how to be immoral, like How to Get Away with Murder, or lead us down a spiral of hopelessness, like Criminal Minds. Additionally, entertainment has been teaching us for years that children are wiser than parents, for example in every Disney movie, or that they don't need their parents. It's no wonder when children come to their parents with good arguments that, instead of being the role models and leaders they were meant to be, the parents follow the bad examples of their children.
Only when you and I determine to follow a set of rules that we believe are absolute can we stop the free fall of moral decay this country is in. And, for me, the only way to adhere to a set of rules that consistently challenge my emotions and desires is to embrace a God that is bigger than everything, who loves me, and will guide me through it all to higher moral ground.
The funny thing is that I can hear the groans and curses of those who have been hurt and those who don't want to give up the lies their emotions have made to be truth. They are cursing self-righteousness and pride, as they should! But as I truly give my adherence to a set of rules to God, I am finding that my pride, my self-righteousness is being broken. God is removing the blinders that said ‘I am the exception to the rule that everyone else should be able to follow.’ He is showing me that everyone else has a struggle equal to or greater than mine. God's rules are not about who is better, but building a society we can all thrive in together. While you might argue that God's Old Testament laws can be used as grounds for boasting, the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ, if really adopted, is humbling.
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