A Quote by Gavriel David Rosenfeld

In times of uncertainty, we tend to move away from deterministic world views. And when we try to find moral footing for our actions, we compare ourselves to the foil of all foils, the Nazi period. It's a quest for moral certainty by saying, "Even if we're not doing great these days, at least we're not the Third Reich." Which can be consoling or alarmist. There's always a present-day agenda behind it.
A great man, who was convinced that the truths of political and moral science are capable of the same certainty as those that form the system of physical science, even in those branches like astronomy that seem to approximate mathematical certainty. He cherished this belief, for it led to the consoling hope that humanity would inevitably make progress toward a state of happiness and improved character even as it has already done in its knowledge of the truth.
...I'm saying that we (Americans) have sunk pretty low and I'm saying that you can look at the moral climate in Germany in 1933. We have to ask ourselves if we found ourselves in Nazi Germany, what would we do. Now I say, let the inspection process take its course.
It is almost inevitable that our faith will be challenged. We may at times find ourselves surrounded by others and yet standing in the minority or even standing alone concerning what is acceptable and what is not. Do we have the moral courage to stand firm for our beliefs, even if by so doing we must stand alone?
... moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false.
If we empower ourselves with responsibility over our actions, responsibility over our destinies and responsibility for directing and maintaining and creating our own ethical and moral frameworks, which is the most important thing really isn’t it because perhaps the greatest insult to humanism is this idea that mankind needs a god in order to have a moral framework.
But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. ... We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.
If we are not inwardly wrought upon, and changed by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit, and our moral actions proceed from a principle of a new nature, however we may call ourselves Christians, we shall be found naked at the great day.
Our lives can be considered a sacred quest. It is a quest which may have begun in this lifetime or many lifetimes before. It is a quest to find ourselves: who and what we really are. To do this we must first cease to pretend to be what we are not. We must cast away our Persona or mask. We must be prepared to confront the Shadow, that which we are and rather were not. Only then can we unify our conscious and unconscious minds and so give birth to the hidden Sun - the Self.
We Americans have a sense of ourselves as a moral people. We have led the way in the fight for human rights in the world. Mistreating prisoners makes the world see our moral claims as hypocrisy.
In this quest to seek and find God in all things, there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good.
Fear, coercion, punishment, are the masculine remedies for moral weakness, but statistics show their failure for centuries. Why not change the system and try the education of the moral and intellectual faculties, cheerful surroundings, inspiring influences? Everything in our present system tends to lower the physical vitality, the self-respect, the moral tone, and to harden instead of reforming the criminal.
Uncertainty is wondrous, and.. certainty, were it to be real, would be moral death.
Weimar lasted 14 years, the Third Reich only 12. Yet Weimar is always seen as a prelude to the Third Reich, which appears to have been created by Weimar's failures.
... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction betweenour present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.
Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa’s apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral?
Moral Injury is differentiated from PTSD in that it directly relates to guilt and shame veterans experience as a result of committing actions that go against their moral codes. Therapists who study and treat moral injury have found that no amount of medication can relieve the pain of trying to live with these moral burdens.
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