Where does morality come from? How did we develop a sense of right and wrong?

Question

I ask, because a response to one of my earlier questions stated that there has to be something greater to establish order and direction in life, and that particular something is God and his Word.


I can't follow that line of thinking, it makes no sense to me.

If that was true, then how did empires such as the Aztecs and Incas ever get started? How could the native Americans form orderly societies? Yes, they had gods that they believed in, but they didn't have the Christian God.

So, without the Christian God, how does one form morals, how does one determine right from wrong?

Answer 1

And I think that line of thinking assumes that humans are the only ones with any kind of moral code. I don't think thats true. African elephant females will "adopt" an orphan at great personal cost to themselves. Many primates will sacrifice their life for the greater good of the group. If *that* can be qualified as instinctual behavior, then why can't our morals? A matter of complexity?

Answer 2

The word says that the truth about right and wrong lives within us. Perhaps not as much in some as others as it appears that intra womb trauma can warp this.

There are drives instilled in us for the survival of man. These drives can as I am sure you have witnessed can become perverted. When man lived in groups of 150 or less and practiced hunting and gathering then when these drives became perverted the group all knew it early on and it became self correcting. If the leadership went bad the tribe died out because of natural forces however that would have been what is known as the garden. Then there was interferance by the Nephilum (sp). and Cain deciding to turn to agriculture. Previous to Ag. man could not survive in large numbers as the land would not support it. Thats why Cain was not blessed, still he was not destroyed and so men existed in larger and larger numbers and people could get away with their perversions more easily because men did not know all those around them. Man can only know a small number of indiiduals as a rule (some can do far more). More than 150 in a tribe and control is lost using only group self control. The curse involves agriculture if you remember.

Befor agriculture life on this planet was vastly different.

Natural inside morality becomes not sufficient when people are not in smaller tribes. At this time it becomes necessary to have law. Remember Moses could not distribute justice because the numbers were too big.

While law which is morals turned into written form for all to use as a measuring tool became necessary when cities began.

You are wrong about those in south America. There was a leader who came and gave them Law. He was blond and had blue eyes, and white skin. He had no birth known to them and came and left. Though i will mis spell his name it was like Quatsyquetal. b4 him they too were hunter gatherers. I believ also there were no large civilizations and by all observations of their accomplishments it seems to me there was input from somewhere outside the normal development methods. Perhaps we we completely unravel their written form of comunication we will know more.

You have those morals written on your heart, i am sure of that. It is trauma which obscures this intuitive heart knowledge but if one lives in a small survival unit then this trauma is self correcting.

The Holy Spirit does what is for the most part healing or restoring us to our natural state, where we have a hot line to God, and the created being experiences more of it's true self.

Can not explain (this does not mean I am not aware only that language does not make it easy and that is for the most part all we share) how I know all this but I am sure if you want to it could be verified by science (good science)
good night red queen

Answer 3

Because God our Creator created us in His image and a part of Him called His spirit is in us. When God says we are without excuse God means WE ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE. When we die as an unbeliever the body goes into the ground but His spirit returns to Him waiting for judgment day. When the believer dies the body goes into the ground but the Holy Spirit perfects us and takes us to heaven.

Before the Cross of Calvary where Jesus died, was buried and resurrected, these believers in God the Father went to heaven with Jesus and the unbelievers are waiting in hell for judgment day.

After the Cross if you deny Jesus you go to hell awaiting the final judgment and the Lake of Fire and if you believe in Jesus you go to heaven to be with Him.

We've always had the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob which is Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus was with the Father God in the beginning and created it all with the Holy Spirit hovering over.

Of Noah's 3 sons, the sons of Ham were cursed. God tells us that He is the Potter and we are the clay. He tells us that He has the right to make good clay pots and bad clay pots. The thing to always remember is we are made for God's purpose and not ours. It is all about God. It is not all about us.

Without the Christian God you do not form morals and you do not know right from wrong. God is the lawgiver. God told us right from wrong. God is love and righteousness and holiness and TRUTH.

If you don't read any other book of the Bible, do me a favor and read the Book of Job.

Answer 4

Human beings seek out patterns and stick to them for survival. For example, the tribes that were able to read the phases of the moon and plant successful crops survived when others didn't. They discovered that it took many people working together to bring down large game for everyone to eat, and without enough people they died out.

We became social beings for survival, as well as to pass on tribal knowledge for future generations to utilize. We formed strong bonds of family and friendship, and it was common sense that if a member of the clan killed off another then it placed the survival of everyone in danger. You listened to the clan elders if you wanted to live.

As our population grew, a single "wise person" was not enough and basic laws were formed. Kings and leaders existed to pass judgment, and society continued to thrive. We no longer have to live in caves or hunt in packs, but 2,000 years ago there were kings and laws that not everyone agreed with. Wars occurred, people were killed, and territories were claimed.

Then someone figured out that if kings cannot be trusted, then to invent a concept of a mighty being that exists everywhere at once would help keep an overal moral code and allow prosperity and peace. I suppose it worked for a while, and there are stories in the bible about mighty kings that opposed this new God. Of course, the outcome of the stories were biased in favor of those that WROTE the bible in the first place, and for thousands of years everyone read about how God did this, God did that, and listen to God.

Over time, the originators were forgotten but the beliefs kept going, because humans found patterns in their faith (and killed off those that didn't believe the same). So now the threads of morality are assumed to lie in this biblical fable instead of simple survival tactics.

Answer 5

Morality has been around for a long time, its natural instinct. Look at the animal world, no animal goes around simply killing and hurting other animals, 99% of the time they kill for either food or in defense, the other 1% are accidents.

I'm sure that the vast majority of the morals in the bible were pulled from other religious and irreligious beliefs. The modern morals were pulled from Christianity, Christianity pulled its morals Judaism, Judaism pulled its morals from Paganism, etc.

Answer 6

human beings have been a lot smarter in historic situations than we supply them credit for. Plato, for example, grow to be of the opinion that our experience of remarkable and incorrect got here from a prior existence and that human beings consistently have been re-born in an attempt to advance and finally attain perfection. Plato grow to be thinking approximately such concerns around the time the dominion of Israel grow to be being destroyed and its leaders led away into the Babylonian exile (around six hundred BC). some thousand years till now that, the Egyptians had a codified criminal device that the old testomony regulation makers used as a form for theirs. rules and morals are the made of adult males. They grew to grow to be mandatory with a view to convey humanity out of its organic chaotic state and into some thing that resembles order. could would not consistently make remarkable. rules are what makes us diverse from our fellow animals interior the decrease scales. adult males's rules, no longer nature's rules. we are conscious on the instant that the human embryo starts getting to grasp on a similar time as nonetheless in its mom's womb and regardless of Plato's thought remarkable and incorrect could desire to be discovered by skill of each and every human beings. that's from our very own reviews that we study each and everything.

Answer 7

Living in early human society entailed co-operation in child rearing etc. People had to work together for the common good because ultimately it benefitted them. That is where morality developed from initially-self interest.

Answer 8

What decides whether we are moral or not is how we are raised as a child, and what we are taught. As we are raised when we are children, we quickly learn what is accepted in society and what is not. In the same way we learn to speak our parents or gaurdians language, we learn what is acceptable or not.

Answer 9

I think morality is a function of conciousness, as only humans are capable of both. If you believe concoiusness ultimately comes from God, then by extension, so does morality.

Answer 10

We learn a lot from our parents, hopefully. Also we learn from society. Are we born with the common sense to know that murder is wrong? I wonder.