MY CONSCIENCE - MY GUIDE

With apologies to Mark Kolke: some musings. (Mark's Blog is called Mark’s Musings. He trudges through the morning snow in Calgary with his dog and examinees the state of the world.) My musing started as my wife and I drove north on the Don Valley Parkway on this Sunday morning. It was not crowded so I wondered why a driver would, for more than a mile, tailgate a delivery van. There was plenty of room to pass on either side.

At the same time I found myself wondering about a recent story saying that drivers were flouting Ontario’s new law forbidding hands-on cell phone use or texting while driving. Aside from the clear danger to themselves and others on the road, there is the even more compelling reason not to: it is against the law!

My musing continued as I remembered the timeless quote by Oliver Goldsmith: “The true judge of a man’s character is what he will do if he knows he can get away with it.”

From there it is less than a quantum leap to why we behave the way we do, Often in defiance, not only of the law, but of any kind of reasonable human moral judgement. In other words, it is against the law to “follow to closely” in a car. But even more, it is contrary to decent behaviour, notwithstanding the law. The question then arises: is our behaviour circumscribed by law or by our own consciences, by our native sense of what it acceptable or unacceptable behaviour? Do we need a “code” of behaviour to be published, or do we know that it isn’t decent to kill or steal or burn down someone’s house.

In my earlier years I taught at a Reform Temple in Toronto. (I severed my relationship with it, and any house of worship partly because the rabbi was “re-mystifying liberal Judaism, and because my already shaky beliefs were seriously eroded.)

I taught a class in Bible study. I tried to “secularize” what is essentially a religious document while at the same time trying to justify some kind of "divine” interference, in the codification (not the creation!) of a moral standard. It was of course, epitomized by the Ten Commandments. I tried to tell my class that these edicts were a symbol of our sense of the Divine. I was also notorious for my “bible-burning” the act immortalized in a book by Rick Salutin. This class was my last stab at trying to reconcile humanism with the bible. I have since given up.

I have seen and heard, with amusement, the debates between theologians and atheists over the issue of where morality is based. The theologians believe that it is scripturally-based and that without the “civilizing” effect of the divinely-inspired writing, we would be morally rudderless. Of course, I side with the atheists who insist that moral judgements are part of civilized humanity and need no push from any notions of a divine power. The Existentialists do know right from wrong. In fact, right and wrong are challenged philosophically since we cannot judge behaviour by absolute standards. I prefer to use the word “appropriate” signifying that any kind of behaviour or moral decision is made pragmatically and is weighed in terms of how appropriate it may be to the circumstance. At its simplest: it may be a sin to kill but if there is a war with human survival at stake there will be killing. (Simple Philosophy 101.)

Bill Maher in his movie “Religulous” asks why, there is nothing new in the Ten Commandments, like amendments to the Constitution I guess. There should be “Thou shallt not kill innocent people with suicide bombing.” If the great mass of believers were brought into the 21st century with commandments like: “Thou shallt not tailgate your neighbour’s car,” or “Speed ye not on public highways,” or “Chain smoking will kill your neighbours." Would they, guided by the super-conscience of the divine, stop behaving anti-socially?

Millions still subscribe to the dogma of the old colonializing world that by taking over a country run by savages, we “civilizes” them by putting them in touch with a body of law, or according to the missionaries, with the “word of God.”

Because I am a non-believer I would not subscribe to it, but might there be a better standard of behaviour for people who won’t obey secular laws enacted by legitimate governments, if those laws were enshrined in a holy book?

The fact that I even consider it is an insult to one’s intelligence. But on the other hand….