Morality
Morality is one of the most important things in everyone’s life. Whether we like it or not, we all have and decide our own moral code. There are generally three types of views in this area. Those who think our code is given to us and we choose to abide by it or not, those who see something handed down as a general guide but can be changed or interpreted, and those who think that we develop our own moral code using the things we learn and what our current society deems reasonable.
Secular Morality
Those of us that are non-believers are frequently asked from where we get our morals. There are many ideas about ethics and morality that enter the ring when you lose the basic precepts that morality is handed down from a supernatural source. Basic Philosophy, Ethics and even deeper biological and evolutionary studies have revealed to us the paths that our morality may have come down to get us where we are today and where it may take us in the future.
A simple quote from Abe Lincoln sums it up for many of us: “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, this is my religion.” Although this is obviously a quote that came out of a questioning of his beliefs, it also works for many as a bases for their personal morality.
Teaching Morality
In The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home, Jonathan Kozol writes that “The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens.” He implies that the public school has no function but to turn out people who will vote, pay their taxes, and follow the nations laws without protest.
Some might agree with this statement but most would probably not. Freethinkers would generally agree that we may not have nor may it even be possible to have the perfect moral society. But during our lives we try and learn as best we can about our own role in the morality of the society we choose to live in. Then when many of us have children or decide to become teachers we may find ourselves in the position of teaching others our form of morality or at least the way we come about our own morality. Some may even study the morality and ethics in societies of the past and present to decide what they should or should not teach.
We as a group enjoy sharing with each other our views on ethics and morality. We always see others as a source of information and possible change because we know that there may be a better way than that which we know.