Okay, well to tell you the truth I never before recently clicked on the forums section to manually browse the site. I've always gotten everything off the home page and unread posts lists, but now it's time for me to step up and create a thread.

Nice job with the revamping, though, AJ. With multiple debate sections and all that. I like it.

Okay. So what do you all think about the subject of morality. What is it? What does it mean to you? How important is it? How important does it seem to modern day society? All that good stuff. As usual, I'll jump in later for some reason instead of stating my own views now.

Good topic of discussion. I'm glad you like the new debate forums setup.

Morality is virtue in sexual matters. It means to me obeying the laws (on this matter) of the USA and the laws of the Bible. It is very important because it is the only sin that the Bible says is a sin against your own body.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? -- 1 Corinthians 6:18-19.

However, our society today in general takes morality much more lightly. You can't turn on the TV without seeing a show or commercial having to do with premarital sex, sodomy, or something along those lines. The pornography industry is making more money than the NBA and NHL combined. We're becoming addicted to this as a society and I think there needs to be some serious changes.

So you think it mainly pertains to sexual matters? I do think that's a lot of it.

My views on morality are what I myself perceive to be right or wrong. I can respect other people's opinions but if someone thinks it's okay to kill certain types of people because ____________ then I am going to disagree.

Let's see...what do I think morality is exactly? How about: Actions (not thoughts, since we really can't control our emotions and thoughts as much as our actions) that affect the lives of other people and yourself have positive and negative effects for both parties (yourself and the other affected people). Based on the consequences that action was morally right or morally wrong. For instance, mugging someone gives you money but subtracts money from the victim and causes them a good fright and various other mental issues. They might need therapy. That, to me, is morally wrong. What if you gave money to a charity that is working to help impoverished families buy food? You lose money, but you gain personal satisfaction and the charity/family in need of money gets money and help. That was morally right.

That's basically what I think. But as for what morality means to me, it's a set of personal standards that I would hope to meet. As for what it means to society as a whole, we all need to look out for ourselves these days and it seems many people would be willing to hurt others to have money and food.

I'll finish later.

The way our actions come about is through our thoughts. Thoughts lead to actions. Just as input leads to thoughts. Control your input and your actions take care of themselves.

And I didn't even mention other parts of morality such as murder, etc. because I think those are a given.

morality is your own personal morals and personal values.... not everyones is the same... its hard as a society to have morals that everyone agrees upon... because what might be morally correct to me could be morally wrong to someone else...

alot of us see it as the devil on one shoulder and angel on another... your conscience if you will... me personally if i have to think about wether its a good idea or not... then is probably not a good idea.. meaning its morally not the right thing to do... if you can jump on it without thinking then its usually going to be morally accepted... now this isn't always the case their are people out there that don't have a conscience and murder rape to name a few don't bother them... these people are the scariest of all... they don't realize what they are doing is wrong...and even when told they still don't see the problem.

So I guess everyone has his/her own interpretation of the word morality. I have a question for the topic starter: Are you talking about morality in contemporary US society? Because what seems moral to you might be regarded as immoral to someone who lives on the other side of this planet.

Who creates morality? Are there universal moral aspects, or is it all very subjective? It might be interesting to take a closer look to an associated term: ideology. I'll elaborate on that later...

Well, those are good questions. What I meant when I made the post was about morality in modern society anywhere, your own interpretation, and how important you think it is. Pretty much every aspect of the word is open to debate.

What is it? My pal "Lerrrrr" from Teenspot.com provided a good definition of it. He wrote:
I personally believe that the respective morality/immorality of an action is something which has to be determined on a case by case basis, as a result of reasoning. I believe it is quite possible that God is responsible for that morality or immorality, but that he did not "create" it on a whim, rather he implemented laws of causation and logic which govern the unfolding of events over time, and implanted in us the ability to USE logic to understand the reasoning behind morality/immorality - basically.

If that doesn't make sense, i would word it as "Morality is the value of each thought/ action in a circumstancial basis, in accordance to causal/ deterministic/ fatalistic laws--which determine the events after the particular thought/ action in question. The ethical quality depends on the necessity of the goal in mind, how it affects one's health or psyche, or whether or not it is logical--with each factor's significance also varying circumstancially."

It's probably 1.a or 1.b on the things most important to me ( acquiring truthful knowledge being the other). It's important because time-after-time, in similar circumstances, there are similar events, whether positive, negative, or neither, which never cease to occur. Or, to put it simply, the idea " The closer two things are in essence, the closer the result will be when both behave equally in the same circumstances/ environment" has always appeared to be true from my observation.

Because most seem to view morality differently than I do, its importance to them is also different. I think most have good intuition, they just don't apply logic correctly at all after they feel things out. They can't understand much without logic, so their experiences with observation aren't of much consequence.

i feel your definition is excellent but... if god implemented us with this ability to see right from wrong logically. then how is it some people do not logically see things as wrong? murder for example. when this happens the average response is remorse... but there are those individuals that have no remorse for their actions, they don't see anything wrong with what they did. if god implemented these ideas into us then how can we have someone that knows\feels no wrong? sure god gave us free will and choice but in this case the person never knew the difference between right and wrong odvoiusly... or are these people lieing about how they feel? or were they mystically skipped over by gods grace on the implementation of right and wrong? or logic?

He didn't attribute to us the ability, he attributed us the potential to see right and wrong; it's just a matter of using both hemispheres of the brain properly.

On the murder. From placing myself in a murderer's shoes ( for learning purposes), I've concluded that those who feel remorse after murdering at least have deep emotional problems. If someone were to murder with the intentions of saving their tail from likely punishment, I would say that they simply prioritize their goals over concern for the state of others, and are, generally, very self-indulgent, and possibly selfish.

However, if this were to be an exclusively malicious act ( such as "I hate you so much, I want to literally kill you"-type motives), they're probably unbalanced hormonally. Their emotions were too strong to have reasonable priorities ( for intelligence helps you have wise ones) and they lost control of their emotions--which is the result of either/ both too high estrogen/ testosterone levels.

In both cases, they're inconsiderate--which is probably the immediate cause of a immoral action. ( that wasn't worded properly. inconsideration is always a factor in poor decision making; the immediacy of it is where I project it to be in terms of where each factor serves their function)

If they don't see anything wrong with what they did, they're most likely all-intuition, no logical thinking. One's right to exist, unfortunately, is not exclusively in their own hands. If one has no reason to not exist, killing them is unwarranted and is, thus, immoral, as it is unfair.

Those who honestly don't see these types of things NEED to logically think things through desperately.

Everyone is born with the feeling of right and wrong, Knox. That's not a question to consider.