Colorblind or Tonedeaf Consciences?

Dan Drake wrote:

> On Tue, 3 Jan 2006 19:58:50 UTC, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Slyfoot wrote:
> >
> > > I am re-reading Mere Christianity again... and as always I love
> > > Lewis's avuncular style and amazing insights. But I was struck by the
> > > following passage in the first chapter:
> > >
> > > "This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that
> > > every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did
> > > not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here
> > > and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are
> > > colour-blind or have no ear for a tune."
> >
> > What color is conscience?
>
> And what key is it in? (Little Wolfgang once brightly remarked on the key
> in which daddy Leopold blew his nose.)
>
> But what's the point of the question? I mean, if my love is like a red red
> rose, am I obliged to know what root stock she's grafted to?

The thread title is "Colorblind or Tonedeaf Consciences?", implying that
conscience has a color or a tone.
 >> Stay informed about: Colorblind or Tonedeaf Consciences? 

Slyfoot wrote:

> I am re-reading Mere Christianity again... and as always I love
> Lewis's avuncular style and amazing insights. But I was struck by the
> following passage in the first chapter:
>
> "This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that
> every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did
> not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here
> and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are
> colour-blind or have no ear for a tune."
>
> Well, let us suppose for a moment that God does imbue people with a
> conscience and an innate moral guide (which of course is highly
> debatable) what could be the cause of someone being 'colorblind' or
> 'tone deaf' to this Law of Nature? Are we to assume that in every
> instance where someone who is amoral, who seems to be genuinely
> unaware of any sense of right or wrong, has somehow gone horribly
> wrong? Has their conscience been 'seared' perhaps, by too much
> immorality? Did they have the 'normal' conscience that everyone else
> has (as Lewis seems to be asserting here) only to gradually or
> suddenly go wrong?
>
> My own ideas about this is that what we call 'conscience' and what
> Lewis called 'the Law of Nature' is a combination of innate and
> socially ingrained feelings. In the normal conscience, one feels an
> action is right or wrong based on social approval; but in some cases
> there is an innate sense. I will try to provide two examples.
>
> One day when my sister and I were playing on the monkey bars, I took
> of my shirt. My sister, seeing nothing at all wrong with it, took her
> shirt off too. My mother caught her and yelled at her to put her
> shirt on because, of course, it was socially unacceptable. At the
> time, being kids, it was no big deal. But of course it's socially
> unacceptable (except in nudist colonies) for a girl to run around with
> no top on. My sister's conscience was thereby 'formed' by my mother's
> scolding.

Were you scolded too?

Much of a man comtemplating murder.
 >> Stay informed about: Colorblind or Tonedeaf Consciences?