A Call To Men

Perfectionism in listening to one’s conscience. ← That’s a skill that could be taught to everyone (though I don’t know if it would get rid of diversity). Listening to one’s conscience would have to be paired with a sense of pride in doing the right thing, not guilt.

Can actual guilt be taught or is it just your own conscience making you aware of your ways? Better yet, can you teach someone to have a conscience?

You can provide the tools for educating an ignorant mind if it is willing to learn but you cannot force it to. Ultimately all self improvement comes from within
Everyone who is compos mentis has a conscience but not all are the same. Guilt is good it as it is admission of error and acceptance of personal responsibility

It would be easier to prove that everyone is insane than to prove that they have a conscience.

Everyone who is not insane does have a conscience but like I said they are not all the same
Since what might make one person feel remorse may not make another person feel likewise
We are moral beings but the things that we feel moralistic about can vary quite significantly

Such as…examples would be helpful.

I see nothing wrong in principle with eating meat but a vegetarian would. I also have no opinion on abortion in general
but someone who was either very pro or very anti would. Yet I do have a strong moral view on the concept of freedom
of speech but again not everyone would. And they are some examples of what I mean by not everyone having the same

Have you ever watched animals becoming food in a slaughterhouse?

No but that would not make me become a vegetarian because I already know that happens. I know that not every animal
is humanely killed but when I am buying or eating meat that thought never crosses my mind. But I actually eat very little
meat anyway. Some chicken on occasion and sausages more frequently and that is it really. I do regularly eat fish though

Fish scream you know?

The reason I asked you the slaughterhouse question is to see if your conscience kicks in when an animal “unnecessarily” suffers and ultimately dies.

I was just talking to Iambiguous about the fact of our shared reality, which requires objective averages rather than subjective personal bubbles. Can’t wait to hear his reply. :evilfun: :laughing: Averages mean a great deal for they represent a shared reality overall.

This illustrates the point I was making which is that while we may each have a conscience we are not moralistic about exactly the same things

You have not so you know not whether you would feel for the animal and rethink your hunger for meat. Go to a slaughterhouse and get back to me.

Er, uh, ee… that’s a tough one. Teaching someone to have a conscience, if it is teachable at all, would be very different from teaching someone math or how to drive. I think having a conscience depends heavily on one’s sensitivity to social circumstance and social cues. You know what they say about psychopaths: they simply don’t have a conscience. The question is: were they born that way or was the conscience beaten out of them? If the latter, then nurturing a healthy conscience is just a matter of fitting a child into the right environment and providing the right upbringing. If the former, then conscience would be very difficult to teach seeing as how it would appear to be deeply rooted in genetics.

As for your question about guilt–can it be taught or is it just the voice of your conscience–I think guilt is the voice of your conscience, but then the question falls back on whether the conscience is teachable or not (which is probably why you followed that up with this question). However, I would always strive to be driven by inspiration, not guilt. Doing the right thing ought not to be a grueling depressing experience–one ought to be proud and inspired to do the right thing. Guilt arises when one is painfully aware of the schism between what ought to be done and what has been done. But pride/inspiration in doing the right thing is the drive to always keep that schism closed.

However, I should point out that the conscience isn’t always infallible. We are sometimes mistaken about what the right thing to do is. We can also become imbalanced psychologically if we focus too much on following the conscience and ignore other drives and desires. I believe in finding the right place in our minds for the conscience, but always maintaining a balance between it and all other drives, wants, needs, impulses, etc. that also have a place in the human mind. Otherwise, even when your conscience gets it right, it will most likely be short lived–accomplishing great things morally speaking but then breaking down psychologically or “crashing” when all our other psychological needs and propensities come back to bite us.

It’s rooted way deeper than mere human flesh and blood, it’s your essence, the nature and design of your soul which is eternal which brings us to the God’s design issue. Who can change God’s design other than God? Can a human soul awaken the spark of divinity in himself if it has fallen dormant? Or was the spark of divinity left out, hence no conscience? Boy, I’m talking about a lot of the same soul stuff in multiple threads in different circumstances.

Well, if the conscience was left out on purpose (by God no less), then that would make God the culprit. It means that a psychopath who is without a conscience (from birth) is a victim of God’s cruel design.

Do you think this is something God does once in a while?

Possibly. I don’t believe that God is all love. He created all which includes hate and evil, so he could very well be responsible for those both lacking a spark of divinity and those who have a dormant spark of divinity.

  • shudder *

God, to me, is the universe. That means he is everything: good, bad, lightness, dark, love, hate. And also that whatever he creates is a part of him, including heartless psychopaths. Thus, we are all responsible insofar as God is responsible.

By His creating us we have at least an idea of how we are the same, but how are we separate or different from Him? Are we in charge of our souls once “born”? Or are we truly at the mercy of our design? This I question. Is there any help or hope outside of God’s interference?