Morality In Our Society Essay, Research Paper
Is There Morality in Our Society?
Everyone has morals, values, attitudes, and opinions about everything. There is probably not one person that agree s with another on every issue. So I wonder, where do these opinions and moral s come from? An imaginative man in history, John Calvin, believed that the second you are conceived, your life is predetermined for you. He believes that at that very second, it is decided for you whether you are going to heaven or hell. No matter what you do in your life to screw up, if you are predetermined to go to heaven, then that is where you are going. Nobody really knows if that is the way it is, but will we ever know? I am what you could call an occasional religious person. I go to church every once in a while, went through all the sacraments, the whole nine yards. I don t know whether or not I believe John Calvin s idea of predetermination. Why is it I m not sure of myself? My morals and values get in the way. I was always taught that based on what you do in life, God would decide where you went when you died. I have been brought up through church, so of course I am going to have different beliefs than someone else who has never stepped foot in a church.
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines moral as of or relating to the principles of right and wrong in behavior . But what is right, and what is wrong? How can we tell the good from the bad? The bottom line is that everyone will have a different answer. As children we have values and morales programmed into our minds from our parent s, and until someone does something drastic to change those thoughts, they will always be set into our heads. Morality deals with how behavior should conform generally with cultural ideas of right and wrong. Morality represents how you think things are in this world and the way certain issues should be handled. I think that before our society can be morally just, our government and laws need to be set. For example, equal opportunity employers, along with the topic of affirmative action, are two perfect examples of our governments use of doublethink. The contradiction can be seen easily in that to deal with the problems of discrimination during hiring, or college acceptance, there must be a discrimination against others. One may ask how the both of these concepts could be executed without realization of the fact that they make no sense. It can only be made out that the population look to the government to solve our problems with their acts, and plans, and we accept them for a solution, without examining what they really entail. Why do we let the government officials decide for us? Is anything the government does morally just, or do they just do it to make yet another law. The government puts tax on everything they possibly can, so why is it that there are some states that don t even have tax? Is that fair? Is the government being morally just by discriminating against certain states? I think there is about 20% moral in everything the government does. My brother is in the US Air force, and he has told me some stories that make me think the government just likes the power and doesn t really care if it goes along with their moral codes. For example, the US Armed Forces demands complete obedience in the sense that the soldiers are to have no thought for the consequences of the actions they are ordered to perform on behalf of the government s means to an end. All of this is obtained by the rigorous training that is a part of the army life . The troops give their will, mind, and morality to superiors. They execute orders without thought, and if there is an ounce of intelligence or doubt from that individual, they are broken down physically, and as a result, mentally. Now, from my point of view, there is no moral in any of that. How can we as a society have morals, when our own US government doesn t even follow moral?