Ethical Questions and Beliefs

Since I was little I've always known about the good, and the bad; what is right, and what is wrong. I was raised to be kind, respectful, and understanding, which I try to be today. My family and I went to church almost every week and I went to church school from elementary school to my 7th grade year. I was very aware about the presence of God and what he meant to me up until my dad's passing my 3rd grade year. This had completely changed my view of religion, causing me to blame God for taking away such a significant person in my life. My religious belief slowly began to weaken, which influenced my beliefs.

Middle school came and went and I hadn't thought much about ethics or what I believed in. It wasn't until my sophomore year when I took AP European History that I began to really take an interest in ethics, especially when looking at the differences in ethical beliefs between philosophers who were religious verses non-religious. I found myself drawn to finding answers to some of the more difficult questions. I'm the type of person who likes to have labels, facts, and structure. Though I believe every question has an answer in the end, I also believe these answers can be different for everyone. Is there a God? What does it mean to live a good life? Not everyone will have the same answers to these questions, and I most certainly didn't have any answers my sophomore year. It really took taking this class and being exposed to ethical matters to get me to come to terms with what I believe.

Is there a God? This is perhaps the most complicated question for me. One part of me feels as though I am obligated to believing in a God because my mother raised us Catholic. However, I know now that I don't believe in God, that one being created everything and holds all power. When I told her this recently she understood where I was coming from, but she asked, "then what will you believe in?" It is not stated anywhere that we must believe in a religion or live for anyone but ourselves. Being human does not mean that you must dedicate yourself to living by a set form of spiritual rules. I also don't believe people need to believe in a higher being in order to be good people and do the right thing. My response was just that, in addition to stating that I know my duty in this world is to help others and to always aim to better myself. I don't need praise or encouragement from a being that I cannot see nor hear for me to keep doing good.

What does it mean to live a good life? I spoke a bit about this in class, saying that I believe living a good life is when you are happy and when those around you are happy as well. There is no purpose of living if you are not enjoying yourself. There are many people who have jobs that they do not love but offer a good income, and I don't want to live like that. I understand that I could never be happy if I had to give up certain privileges that I am use to. In order to keep these privileges I will need to have a well paying job, but there are plenty areas that I am interested in that offer these opportunities. There is no doubt in my mind that if I am not happy I will not be staying as such for long. We all deserve to feel comfortable and pleased with where we are and how we are in life, and in some instances we need to look out for that and be selfish from time to time. Though it is important for us to be happy individually, we need to make wise decisions to make sure others are happy as well. There is a problem with this at times when making others happy puts our own happiness in danger. In which case we should compromise and allow both sides the option of feeling content.

There are so many other things that I could talk about. Ethical matters are endless as we all have our own opinions and there is no socially accepted answer for them. We have the ability to make ourselves happy and if rejecting faith or putting aside the happiness of others is what makes us happy, then we must do what is best. There is only one person in this world you will be with forever, and that is yourself. Make time to focus on what is truly important to you and to establish what you believe in so that you can make better contributions to society and help others find their own happiness as well. That is what I believe is our end goal in life, to be happy and to make others happy.