Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

This column previously ran by Deepak Morris is now taken over by Gautami Tripathy and now the column will be written by Dr. Harmander Singh.

The purpose of the column is to bring the culture and joy of mysterious and beautiful India to the world.

March 8, 2008

MORALITY AND RELIGION FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLVING

Dr. Harmander Singh

            Morality signifies a code of ethical principles, which are essential for leading a noble, peaceful and harmonious life. Moral education is the education of the heart, without which no individual can be completely human. Moral virtues promote the social efficiency of an individual. The value system thus becomes a practical way of living rather than sharing our broad knowledge that we usually acquire from others, including the books. We seem to learn, think and feel it, the self felt feelings of our experience going beyond the philosophy, and thus reaching the level of practical philosophy and other faculties of knowledge, the creative thinking and scientific feelings, which is the subject matter of Philselfology.

            Morality is the experience, which human beings have, which makes us different from animals. The feelings of shame and pity are the starting factors of morality in human beings. When we experience the feeling of reverence, the morality is established into proper human form different from that of animals. The feelings of reverence and love form the moral basis of religion in a human. In its true form, religion is also an experience, not merely reading or knowing. Both morality and religion are based on inner development of human beings. A person with experience of both would be satisfied and have peace of mind, no matter how we judged him or her by his or her outer way of living and personality. It is from morality that we gain the feeling of reverence; however, this is very natural in a sense. We submit ourselves to something, which, we consider; is higher and better, than us to become as it is for us to be. This is the point where it is intended to say that morality does depend on religion even though morality in itself has its uniqueness. However, while we are going to talk about the dependence of peace on morality and religion, we are taking religion in its true form, i.e., a true religion, not the one which human misuse or deforms. The true religion speaks about the love and grace of the Absolute, Nature and the humanism, which is also an integral part of morality.

            Since we seek goodness in its highest form, i.e., we want to be perfect even though we cannot, we see that goodness in its highest form is in God or Mother Nature. Since God or Nature is good, whatever, He commands is also good. We, therefore, conclude that the Divine Command Theory gives the right and good morality that we need to achieve the best standards of goodness, having said that it is from the only source of goodness; God. This is to emphasize that what God commands is right not because it was already right but because God has existed from the beginning of time, Religion is based on the Divine Commands Theory. In other words, we can know what God commands from religion, though; in some cases, the Divine command comes independently to those, who do not know about religion. The intention here is to say that there is a relationship between morality, religion and Divine Command Theory. However, religion and the Divine Command Theory are having a stronger bond than separation from each other.

            It is important to gain good qualities but a more important thing is to maintain them. In other words, true living is higher than truth. Morality includes good qualities like love, reverence, pity, shame etc. we can gain these qualities but it is hard to maintain them. Religion helps and enables us to maintain them. Therefore, in other words, the Divine Command is the greatest help in maintaining them. Before the comings of Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, Lord Buddha, Lord Christ, Lord Mohammed, Guru Nanak and many other divine comings, the morality was largely losing its meaning. In other words, the people were losing the experience of having morality but through the Divine Command, which came through these great prophets, the great help come to maintain and to acquire, maintain and develop morality. It is worthwhile to state that we can as in most cases, know the Divine command from the teachers of religion like the prophets mentioned above. Moreover, this is a kind of dependence of peace on morality and religion. It is like saying that teachers in the schools, colleges, universities etc. maintain (or preserve) the education even through education may be independent of them.

                       The Divine command is the universal and thus the most desirable as for as the globalization and or universalizing of anything is concerned. All knows the Divine command, as St Paul said in his letter to the Romans that when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what the law (Jewish religious commands) required; they were law into themselves, even though they did not have the law. They showed that what the law requires is written on their hearts. It makes us feel that peace is based on the Divine command as the command (or law) is written on the heart, when we take St Paul's words for religion we see that Divine command about Jewish religion (Law) leads to peace. Moreover, therefore, the morality that is necessary for peace is based on religion in his words. Also as we are giving the example of St. Paul, we realize that morality in Israel was based on religion and again by saying that law is written on everyone's heart, we are saying that morality is based on religion and accepting others as we are and moreover, ourselves as we are. But, besides this, we are clear about it that the Gentiles were not religious (Jewish) so; we can conclude that the Divine command is obeyed even outside the religion, which means that religion is dependent on Divine command. Moreover, as morality is experience and a natural thing, so it is also dependent on Divine command on the basis that from the doctrine of God as the creator and source of everything, we see that there is a real and objective difference between right and wrong which is rooted in the will of God and thus in His command.

            It is natural that the child acquires and develops reverences for his mother, father and other elders as one grows. Similarly the child acquires feelings of shame and pity, as he grows, which are the basis of human morality and religion want to preserve the most natural form of morality and as we have already stated that the important thing is to maintain, that is what religion seeks and does in its true form so as to bring peace. As far as independence of morality is concerned, we can say from our experience of history of human civilization, that anything which cannot maintain itself, no matter if it has uniqueness and an independent form, would need more or less dependence on something else which is broader that than thing. On this base, we see that religion is broader than morality as we see that religion is not entirely based on morality but on Divine command which is broader than even religion itself, because religion is based on Divine command which means Divine command should be broader otherwise religion cannot maintain itself and it is so.

            There can be situations in which we start making judgments as to whether God is right or wrong. This is clear from the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Holy Bible. Abraham became a father at a very old age with God's blessing and he loved his son very much but one day God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. We may think that God is wrong because we think it is wrong to sacrifice one's son. However, God tested Abraham's faith, but when he wanted to kill Isaac God stopped him. Here the holy Bible says that God did this to test and to bless. In other words, the holy Bible justifies God's action. This is one extreme position where it looks to us that God did a doubtful thing but this was right. This also expresses that the standards of morality that are without Divine command cannot be absolutely justified or satisfied and in such cases morality goes nearer to religion and thus the Divine command instead of human understanding for peace. The greatest justification comes when we do not have any alternative at all. The Divine command to love one another, on a positive basis or on a moral basis, cannot have any alternative. More justification comes when we say that to hate someone is self-punishment. Therefore, we see the dependence of morality on religion or Divine command can be justified in this way.

            In conclusion, we see that to maintain morality, religion is very important. As a positive view, the moral basis which religion gives cannot have any alternatives, which means dependence of morality on religions is justified. Here we mean, alternative to good cannot be other than good and if we would have than we would not know what that good was. Moreover, if we provide bad as alternative to good, it would mean our thinking is not based on morality and goodness, i.e., we are negative in this sense. This is a particular kind of dependence on morality of human beings on religion. As the Sun is the source of heat and light, which does not need our contribution, similarly God or Nature is the source of all good things. Therefore, His command will only benefit us. We have seen that morality, religion and the Divine command Theory are broader than each other and interrelated such that peace depends upon these. So morality can be independent of religion, as some human beings may believe, but it cannot maintain itself, therefore it is dependent on religion. However, when we relate morality, society and individual, we see that individual cannot easily maintain morality if he or she is not dependent on society, similarly morality though can exist independently but always needs broader base like religion. Therefore, we should not only respect morality but religion as well to bring peace for ourselves.

Let us pause and ask our self

* Are we aware that morality and religion along with divinity and
 spiritualism are divisions and sub-divisions, which are, in their true form, are meant for peace for all? 

* Do we accept that morality and religion have always aimed at the message that we should love one another as we love ourselves? 

* Do we comment on the philosophy of religion without studying and  experiencing it? 

* While resolving peace conflicts; do we listen the voice of the divine command present in the voice of our conscience?

* Are we sharing with our kids and children that morality is the best way to resolve the personal conflicts, so that we may contribute to human community as a part of all joys, blessings and gifts that we share as the humans?

(An extract from the youngster book: Learning to Live a Peaceful Life by Dr. Harmander Singh)

The article is an abstract from my published book: Self Improvement for Peaceful Living. I have edited it for publication in the magazines, and was published. Initially it was one of the topics in Philosophy at the Adelaide University South Australia, where, I composed it in the wisdom of east and the west. It says that we all can accept others as we are, and it always helps. This is in accordance with Divine Command Theory, God's Good Will, Religion and the related aspects of the morality and the value system that we need for peace and conflict resolving with non-violence. Thanks! 

ABout the Author

    Dr. Harmander Singh is a writer having sound touch of both East and West. He writes prose and poetry with penname Bhagouauty using the level and simplicity of the language for all readers with English as the first, second and third language depending on the different counties and the native languages. So far, he has written more than 25 books for children and for 25 for everyone. This is his first series of one-act plays for the children, in which he has beautifully touched the sensitive reflection of childhood, youthful, old, and thus family to social interactions with oneness and togetherness of both societies of the East and West for No Child Left Behind (NCLB), while we are celebrating the 100 years of Scouting globally (1907-2007). He has studied in Australia for two years and from his early school times taking keen interest in ancient and the modern human civilizations with many cultures, nations and continents full civilized people living in our world. It is a humanly bond getting educational and social interactions from more than 20 years. He is member of Association of Educators for World Peace, while serving the society with educational, social, humanity and self-awareness missions for all as the founder MD, Life Glowing Path Inc. USA. His is fourth book “Happy Peace Day” is ready to published book as a present for children and the senior readers as well, who seek to explore the humanly and creative thoughts and scientific feelings called Philselfology, the universalizing of human wisdom for the running new millennium.