Is there anyone out there ? (part 6)

Submitted by saltysteve on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 17:59

God - the guv'nor for the misguided or the guide for the misgoverned

Let's forget the Bible for now and consider God himself. Of course I don't know where you stand on this big issue, so let us start at first principles and look at the basics for belief in a Creator. Now I'm not going to be exhaustive here as this is a big issue and I don't intend to consider questions in the line of "if there's a God, why .... ?".

What I want you to consider is the evidence of your own eyes, ears and reasoning ability or nous. We're not talking about emotion, or gut-feelings here as these fall into the realm of faith, which of course is intensely personal and subjective.

(i) Do the right thing!

Have you ever considered your conscience? It is the part of your mind which tells you whether what you are doing is right or wrong. We know all about it when we've done something wrong (e.g. stealing a friend's toy if you're a child, or stealing a friend's wife if you're an adult), because, assuming we are functioning correctly, we have a guilty conscience about the situation.

It seems that the conscience's main job is to convict us of this guilt when we've 'transgressed', rather than commending us when we've been particularly good - that's when pride takes over and we start telling ourselves how wonderful we are! Sometimes your conscience can become confused or over-ruled . A member of a cult, or a Nazi party member during the war would have been given a whole new set of values. They could be told such nonsense that killing is good and compassion is a waste of time. Their consciences would thus be re-programmed and a sense of right and wrong would be utterly distorted. We can then say that their consciences are seared as they consider themselves to have a clear conscience to indulge in whatever acts they have been programmed to do.

So a conscience can be re-programmed. But who programmed it in the first place? How does your conscience know what is right or wrong? Are our consciences taught to us?

I believe that our conscience is as natural to us as is our breathing. We are not taught to breathe as otherwise we'd all be dead before we reached the maternity hospital scales. In the same way the organs of our body automatically go about their business, from birth until they finally pack up a lifetime later. Even though we may teach our children to do good and we live according to the laws of the land, the basic instinct is there already, with our conscience acting as our internal alarm to keep us on the right track.

The only conclusion that I can come to is that our conscience has been put there by a benevolent Creator, God, not only to help to govern our actions, but also to speak of himself and point us back to him.

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