Dennis Prager: Is the Conscience Reliable?

“A person’s moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behavior” — the dictionary definition of “conscience.”

Whenever I make the common-sense argument that people need to hold themselves accountable to a morality-giving, morality-judging God — specifically, the God of the Bible, and more specifically, the God of the Ten Commandments — a flood of incredulous, frequently mocking, responses immediately appears in the comments section and on atheist and left-wing websites.

The gist of the God-is-morally-unnecessary argument is this:

“Unlike Prager and other religious people, I don’t need God to tell me murder is wrong. My conscience tells me that. I don’t need to answer to any god; I answer to my conscience.”

This response is held most widely among the best educated — i.e., the people most likely to reject the existence of God and the necessity of both God and the Bible for either a moral order or for attaining wisdom (without which a moral order is impossible).

The fact that a large majority of secular people believe that their conscience is sufficient to guide them in moral decisions is another example of the low intellectual level secularism. Others include “men give birth,” “sex is nonbinary,” “Western civilization is no better than any other civilization,” “color-blind is racist” And “people are basically good” (The most foolish doctrine that people must accept if they believe the conscience can produce moral behavior).

The belief that the conscience can replace God and Judeo-Christian moral values as a producer for moral behavior is a secular idiocy.

Most people’s consciences can be easily manipulated, which is a fact. The conscience is the most malleable aspect of human existence. It is as malleable than putty. It is as solid. The malleability and flexibility of the conscience is enough to support God- and Bible-based morality.

The conscience would be morally effective. Who is the evildoer? People who do evil for their own reasons (such rapists, murderers, and thieves) or ideological reasons (such a Nazi, communist, and Islamist terrorists), still sleep well. Raskolnikov was the murderer-protagonist from Dostoevsky’s. “Crime and Punishment,” is an exception — but only because he is a fictional character.

Nearly all those who have committed or supported evil have a clear conscience. This is why “I answer to my conscience” It is intellectually as well as morally meaningless. Every monster and moral fool “answers” His conscience. And his conscience tells him he is just fine — especially today, in the age of self-esteem.

It is truer to state that one’s emotions and behavior create the conscience than one’s conscience does. Overwhelmingly people either do what they like and tell themselves that it is right or what their feelings say and they label the feelings. “conscience.”

This is another way to show that the conscience can be largely ineffective in directing right behaviors: People on opposing sides of any moral issue believe they are listening. This is true for every issue. This is true for extreme examples such as World War II German soldiers and their Nazi leaders — and the Allied troops and leaders who fought the Nazis; the Western spies who gave the secrets to the atom bomb to Josef Stalin, the second greatest mass murderer in history (Mao was first) — and the anti-communists who opposed Stalin; and the Japanese soldiers who used Korean “comfort women” (women whom they regularly gang raped) and who performed hideous medical experiments on Chinese civilians — and the Allied troops and leaders who fought the Japanese in World War II. This list could go on and on.

These extreme cases are not necessary. Americans who believe the human fetus has a right to live (unless its death is necessary to save the life of the mother — something that almost never happens thanks to modern medicine) and those who do not believe the human fetus has any right to live (unless the mother wants it to) are both equally convinced their consciences dictate their views on abortion. Americans who believe it moral to remove the breasts of any girl, young woman or girl who declares she is a male, have a perfectly clear conscience.

The moral infallibility of the conscience means that the word basically refers to what one feels is right and wrong. Conscience is, therefore, a euphemism that refers to feelings. Another word for the is “conscience”. “heart.”

The general ineffability of the? “conscience,” How can one be morally guided

History is in favor of a mixture of God (the God mentioned in the Bible), and reason. Fanaticism and God with no reason can often lead to fanaticism and the other evils that it usually brings. Reason without God leads to moral chaos, such as the university. Irony of ironies: Reason without God ends with death. Unless you believe otherwise. “men give birth” It is rational.

Dennis Prager is a national syndicated radio talk-show host, columnist and radio talk-show host. His commentary on Deuteronomy (3rd volume) of “The Rational Bible,” In October, he published a five-volume commentary about the first five books. He is co-founder of Prager University. Contact him at dennisprager.com.

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