Here is one idea that I found particularly fascinating:
One of the things that obviously comes up when we look at the world around us is all the different ways that people interpret ethics-the different ways we feel about questions from the political hot topics of abortion or welfare to individual challenges about generosity or parenting.
You’ll often see the same event interpreted in totally different ways-some thinking of it as a minor fault, and others a significant sin.
Naturally, there are people studying our moral codes as human beings, and this week I stumbled across this fascinating site called
http://www.yourmorals.org/
Where you can take quizzes to see how much you care about things on a five point scale, including harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity (I think these are pretty self explanatory, but the "Moral Foundations Questionnaire at this link has explanations).
My results are as follows:
The green line is me, the blue line is the liberal average, the red line the conservative average. I see my Mennoniteness coming out because I really don’t like hurting people (there is a pacifism question), and I think authority is silly, and while ‘disgusting’ does not register on my moral compass, ‘sinful’ does.
I share this for two reasons.
First, it reminds me that there are people who care a lot more than I do about authority and loyalty, and I should honor those virtues.
And second, because you should all take the quiz as well, and see what you find, since self knowledge is one of the key tasks of our lives.
