Is there a universal morality? I say there is and it is all based upon the Golden Rule spoken of by Christ. As Jesus said, love your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. If these two laws are kept, you keep the rest of the laws by default. Of course, not everyone believes in God, but everyone knows that they have a neighbor and must treat their equal the way they wish to be treated.
And so it goes, all cultures have laws against doing harm to one another, such as stealing and killing etc. However, why does a cultures morality seem to deviate with such things as abortion, slavery, racism, etc?
A good way to understand this is to realize how our morality can be formed. Although we have an innate sense of the Golden Rule, it can be tinkered with. Case in point is slavery in the 1800's. Men took slaves from Africa and brought them to the US to be slaves. How could they do such a thing? Basically the trick is to dehumanize the other party. The slave was seen as inferior and a mere beast of burden. It is then that we use mental gymnastics to justify such treatment, even though we know deep down it is not OK. Once the other party is no longer your equal, you can then treat them like a sheep your slaughter to eat. In fact, I bet if you took an opinion poll back then regarding slavery, most would probably say it was OK even though they did not care for it much. However, many generations later slavery seems immoral to everyone. This shows how vulnerable we are to those in authority over us. We innately look to those whom we respect as being in authority over us, whether it be parents, the state, clergy etc. In reality, God was suppose to be our moral authority all along.
In fact, we see the exact same technique being employed around the world. We must first dehumanize the other party if we wish to mistreat them and justify such mistreatment. The unborn is merely a fetus, the Jews are pigs and apes, those not Muslims are infidels etc.
So never let anyone tell you that morality is relative. It's not relative, it is innate. However, never deny the Biblical truth that we are also mere sheep as our internal morality can be skewed with a mere law of men.
All I can say is, choose your shepherd wisely.
And so it goes, all cultures have laws against doing harm to one another, such as stealing and killing etc. However, why does a cultures morality seem to deviate with such things as abortion, slavery, racism, etc?
A good way to understand this is to realize how our morality can be formed. Although we have an innate sense of the Golden Rule, it can be tinkered with. Case in point is slavery in the 1800's. Men took slaves from Africa and brought them to the US to be slaves. How could they do such a thing? Basically the trick is to dehumanize the other party. The slave was seen as inferior and a mere beast of burden. It is then that we use mental gymnastics to justify such treatment, even though we know deep down it is not OK. Once the other party is no longer your equal, you can then treat them like a sheep your slaughter to eat. In fact, I bet if you took an opinion poll back then regarding slavery, most would probably say it was OK even though they did not care for it much. However, many generations later slavery seems immoral to everyone. This shows how vulnerable we are to those in authority over us. We innately look to those whom we respect as being in authority over us, whether it be parents, the state, clergy etc. In reality, God was suppose to be our moral authority all along.
In fact, we see the exact same technique being employed around the world. We must first dehumanize the other party if we wish to mistreat them and justify such mistreatment. The unborn is merely a fetus, the Jews are pigs and apes, those not Muslims are infidels etc.
So never let anyone tell you that morality is relative. It's not relative, it is innate. However, never deny the Biblical truth that we are also mere sheep as our internal morality can be skewed with a mere law of men.
All I can say is, choose your shepherd wisely.