Conscience Created versus Innate

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Conscience Created versus Innate

To what extent do you think you are dictated by your surroundings and your up-bringing? Do you claim your opinions to be your own? Do you trust your logic and your conscience? These are questions that are seldom asked by ourselves or by others. In fact, these kinds of questions could almost be considered taboo. It seems to be generally accepted that one can trust oneself, one’s authority, and one’s conscience. Upon these premises we seem to build up everything else. We rely on our beliefs. We trust them and once we decide they are true, we put our energy towards protecting them. We find justification for obeying the things and people we believe in. Whether it be our government, our parents, or any belief we hold dear, we regard our beliefs as sources of truth and direction. They make up a very significant part of what we are.

Perhaps of all of our sources of direction or guidance, our consciences receive the highest regard and trust. In many ways, we attempt to obey our consciences without fail. We hold our consciences to be the absolute truth that acts as a ground for our actions and beliefs. But what is a conscience and where does it come from? Merriam-Webster’s English Dictionary defines conscience as: “consciousness of the moral right or wrong of one’s own acts or motives” (p 171). So, your conscience serves as the part of one’s thoughts that agrees with good and disagrees with bad. It is the mechanism that allows you to know the difference between good and evil. Does this mean that if we are to follow our consciences collectively there will be no problems and no wrong? No, this is definitely not true. There is no absolute right or wrong. One finds this virtually an...

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...aken slowly and carefully.

In light of this knowledge of the inconclusiveness of our beliefs, it is a duty placed on everyone of us to be wary of trusting oneself more than you trust another. Remember, one is what one has been shown to be. One knows only what he has seen.

Bibliography:

Works Cited

Lessing, Doris. “Group Minds.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, Custom

edition, University of Utah, 7th Ed. Laurence Behrens and J. Leonard Rosen, eds. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, inc. 2000, 3-5.

McConkie, Bruce R. “Morman Doctrine.” 2nd Ed. Salt Lake City, Ut: Bookcraft, inc.

1966, 156-57.

Hume, David. “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.” Reason and Responsibility,

11th Ed. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau, eds. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, a division of Thompson Learning, inc. 2002, 53-77.

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