1. In the 11th grade, I took an ethics class at my Catholic, all-girl prep school. Although I have been taking religion classes on topics like the Bible, church history, Catholic Social Teaching for my entire life, it wasn’t until then that I sat in a religion class that I actually enjoyed and it wasn’t until then that I felt like I was learning useful information. My teacher, who had just graduated from Harvard Divinity School, knew so much and expanded our minds to entertain so many new ways of thinking that I had never considered or knew existed. She shared with us teachings from many philosophers, both Catholic and non-Catholic. Since then I have always kept Thomas Aquinas’s words that “he who goes against his conscience always sins” close to me. I think an informed conscience is one of the best things to cultivate in life because it is the best tool for making decisions and guiding actions. We come to college to educate ourselves in not only factual knowledge, but also knowledge of different ways of life. If someone does not have an informed conscience, how can they prudently navigate a discussion on ISIS and Islam? How can they understand someone who treats NFL football as more than just what they watch on Sundays? College is a time to learn those alternative ways of thinking. By no means must we ascribe to them, but we certainly should recognize their validity and value. I decided to continue studying religion during college, even if I was just taking one occasional
Conscience is a sense of what a person believes to be right and wrong. To form a mature conscience, people must communicate with others, that are considered to have moral wisdom, within communities. According to Richard M. Gula in his book Reasons Informed by Faith, “A criterion of a mature moral conscience is the ability to make up one’s mind for oneself about
Benjamin Franklin once said, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.” Prior to taking my Exploring Religion class at Nazareth College, I will admit that I was pretty religiously ignorant, even in the religion that I identify with! It was not that I did not want to learn about religions, I just was never very motivated to do my own research, and because these topics are so touchy in schools, we never went in depth, in high school. I am beyond thankful that a religious studies class is a requirement at Nazareth because after taking it, I feel that it is very important to be educated on religion as it is so controversial in our society, today.
This activity is an example of how the classroom environment can facilitate the development of a moral conscience. Though moral development is hard to define, it is commonly thought of as the process by which students are influenced
Conscience, as defined by the Merriam – Webster Dictionary, is “the part of the mind that makes you aware of your actions as being either morally right or wrong”. It’s that tiny voice inside your head that tells you if what you’re about to do, what you’re doing or what you’ve done is essentially right or not. A lot of people nowadays tend to ignore this for fear of being ridiculed or judged by other people, even if what they did was actually right.
In everyday life, whether it is in the workplace or personal life, people have a certain level of ethics that is expected. This course has influenced me to be more aware of how we deal with people and their problem. I think that the body of Christ has not taken seriously the professional and legal ethic of Christianity. We look at it from the secular world or the work places, but not our personal lives and or neither do we incorporate it in our churches properly. Ethics is about knowing and doing what is good or right, for the Christian, this means applying the Bible and other resources of the Christian faith to help decide and do what is ethically or morally right.
Research proposes that education has a great potential to influence moral discourse and ethical dilemma resolution (Zrinyi & Balogh, 2004). Educators are in a key position to ensure that students are aware of specific strategies for dealing with moral distress through role-modeling and classroom studies (Zrinyi & Balogh). Moreover, being aware of one’s own values and biases can provide a basic point of
To develop a good informed conscience use things like The Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church these are both excellent resources. These resources can remind people of the principles of how to be a better person. I have seen evidence of someone using their conscience well, my friend and I were waiting at the bus stop for our bus and there was a little grade 7 who had no money to get on the bus. My friend and I heard him asking people for money so he wouldn’t get in to trouble, but my friend had $5 that he was going to spend at McDonalds. But my friend felt sorry for this little boy so he gave him the $5 to catch the
Reverend Thomas V Berg author of “What is Moral Conscience?,” published on January 1, 2012 in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review Magazine, defines moral conscience. Within Berg’s article he talks about multiple amount of people being misinformed on moral conscience, especially Catholics. Berg breaks down the misconceptions of conscience into four different notions: conscience as emotive response, conscience as built in moral guidance system, conscience as moral sense, and conscience as moral opinion. Within each notion defines each one and explain why it is incorrect. After explaining each misconception he then gives the definition of moral conscience. Berg explains that conscience must be formulated within one’s lifetime basing it on their
When I went into Grade 9 religion, I thought that it was going to be one of the most useless and boring courses that I took as religion is not significant in my life. About a quarter in to the semester, I was surprised when I realized that I actually enjoyed going to religion class every day. The heated discussions about controversial topics, the interesting lessons and the captivating movies were all responsible for the best hour and fifteen minutes of my weekdays. I was raised by parents who didn’t believe in any religion, but they never forced their belief on me. Until a year ago, I was completely uneducated about the Catholic faith. However, I learned a lot about Catholicism during religion class. That’s when I realized that just because
Throughout the year, my understanding of religion has grown immensely. Growing up I had a fairly closed mind on the extent of what religion meant. I’ve grown up in a moderately religious family, but religion hasn’t been the center of our attention. When I was young, I’d been taught to pray before eating dinner and again before bed, I wasn’t influenced by the Bible specifically but more by the morals. I have attended the Youth Group of Grace Church since I was in 8th grade and stopped this year. I had a connection this year that helped with my understanding of what religion means. As we’ve studied five different religions, I have come upon the same pattern. Religion focuses on having quality morals. To me, there’s a bit more to religion than believing in a god or higher power. A great factor of religion is having concrete examples of the ethical things to do and how to better yourself as a whole and the people
All around the world, every minute of everyday someone encounters a moral dilemma whether it is minuscule or monumental. Going against ones religious or moral beliefs can be problematic; it may in fact be so moving that it causes one to reexamine their entire thought process.
By informing our moral decisions and behavior with Scripture, “one can discern principles that should govern our decisions”. This becomes instrumental in assisting us not to conform to
My method of approaching moral dilemmas has evolved as this course has progressed. Initially, I based almost every moral decision on my personal code, a set of beliefs shaped by my experiences and upbringing. While this has remained the case, my frame of reference has expanded. Instead of relying only on my experiences and of those I agree with, this course has taught me to take every perspective into consideration. These are often just as valid as my own, and my cultural and cognizant biases should be checked before a judgement is made.
Decision making in an organization can be a positive strength that can be used individually and in-group situations. In every organization there is a team enviorment that gets created. The focus that needs to be made when making a group decision is listening to each other, formulation of questions and how they present their views. When there is an enviorment where every person in the team feels comfortable this raises the quality of the decisions being made (Foundationcoalition.org, 2014). Individual decision making can be sorted by examining cognitive styles that work best for each individual that are used for gathering information and evaluating alternatives. Features of insight and creativity can be developed to help assist the decision makers. Ultimately, the use of technology systems can help individual and improve team groups through expert methods and group decision support systems. The nature of todays work in organizations becomes more complex, dynamic and global; there has been an increasing emphasis on the exertion of virtual teams as organizing units of work. Even though there is little knowledge about the new form of work unit this report will briefly touch on understanding virtual teams and in particular to identify the implications it might have for an effective leadership (Bell & Kozlowski 2002).
It is advisable to involve as many people as are needed in making a decision. In making collective decisions, specific expertise as well as experience of a person both can be used simultaneously. The decision-maker, having weighed the advice of experts and experienced hands, must then use authority to ensure that the final decision is seen through.