Blogpost 6 : Conscience vs. Conscious

So what are the difference between these two? How they are connected? well conscience is the aspect of a person's character that judges his/her actions as moral or immoral, good or bad depending on that person's mental attitude while conscious is the state of being awake and fully aware of one's surroundings and mental processes. Your conscience is the "little voice" inside your head that tells you right from wrong. Sometimes we listen to our "conscience" sometimes we don't. Being conscious is being aware, simply put. Being conscious of other people's feelings, for instance, means you are careful and aware of their feelings.

The consciousness humans have that an action is morally required or forbidden. In the Christian tradition the nature of this awareness and its status as knowledge is a central problem. On the one hand it is sinful to act against one's conscience; on the other hand conscience can deceive, since we can be mistaken about what is required or forbidden. Conscience is an ability or a faculty that distinguishes whether one's actions are right or wrong. It leads to feelings of remorse when one does things that go against his/her moral values, and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when one's actions conform to our moral values. It is also the attitude which informs one's moral judgment before performing any action. The extent to which such moral judgments are based in reason has been a matter of controversy almost throughout the history of Western philosophy.

I found an article entitled "Consciousness VS Conscience" by Isis in beforeitsnews. The main focus of this article is that conscious is far way different than conscience. Even though these two are both acting in minds and both can have the ability to sense or to feel something, but, conscious is the ability of being able and aware of your surroundings, like being awake while conscience is in your mind, it tells you what is and what isn't right.

What is consciousness? What is it to be aware? The more we think, the less we can define it. How does it happen? How does something in the brain lead to our emotions, feelings and thoughts? And why does it happen? Why were humans endowed with consciousness, with the ability to know that they exist, that they live, that other people live, that they are part of this universe and that they will die? Why do we need to "think" at all?

Being conscious is just being aware of your environment as well as your presence in it. Better yet, it is being aware of yourself as far as your own existence, sensations, and thoughts. when someone tells you you are too self-conscious or not self-conscious enough. the term conscience, on the other hand is the tool that your superego creates to inform you of what is right or wrong. People with a guilty conscience are reacting to feelings of guilt because of wrongdoing that has either happened or will happen on their behalf or at least due to their complicity in doing something they know to be bad.

Is it always right to follow one’s conscience? Your conscience isn't always right. Your conscious is shaped by the moral standards and the norm as seen in society. Parents play a huge role in the development of your morals, especially when you're a young child. However, I think it's right to follow one's conscience because right or wrong is a lesson for you.

The important lesson that I learned is that both words have to do with the mind, but it's more important to be conscious, or awake, than conscience, or aware of right and wrong. Remain conscious while listening to your friend's moral dilemma so you can use your conscience to give good advice.

Blogpost 5 : A Biblical Icon Character and Conscience

Did Adam and Eve have a conscience before they ate from the tree of knowledge? No. It is an allegory for the loss of innocence we all experience as children when we begin to see the right from wrong, and you can never go back to that paradise. I believe in the story of Adam and Eve they do not have a conscience because they do not have any concept of wrong. They never even knew what a lie was, and for their innocence they damned all of humanity, it eternal despair and torture for god knows how many generations until god sent Jesus to take back the curse.

Well a conscience is based on knowledge, or feeling, of what is right or wrong. So, I would say they didn't have a conscience until they had eaten from that tree. It's not actually conscience but they only knew and did what God told them to do so it was limited. Eating from the tree opened their minds up to other possibilities including good and bad. I prefer to think of them being simpletons with no imagination before they ate the fruit. Before they ate from the tree of knowledge they didn't know of sin. They didn't know something was wrong therefore, they did not feel bad about it. It was only after they ate from the tree and God chastised them and they gained a conscience because then they knew good from evil.

I found an article entitled "Did Adam Have a Conscience Before the Fall?" by Herman Bavinck in thegospelcoalition. This article is about before the so called temptation of Adam and Eve there is really a harmony between man's love for god and consciousness but after giving it to the sins, the temptation of man, it kinda open the eyes of man to the possibility that they can be separated from god and it manifested through guilt of their conscience. There is a thin line between being conscious that you have committed something wrong and being guilty about it, all of these things can be best explain inside our conscience.

In his article he stated "By the grace of God, humans still retain the consciousness that they ought to be different, that in all respects they must conform to God’s law. But reality witnesses otherwise; they are not who they ought to be. And this witness is the conscience." They did not know that it was bad to disobey God, but as long as they obeyed him they did not need to know what was good or bad. Only when they started acting on their free will did they need to know right from wrong so that they would not do the latter. That is why the commandment not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was such an appropriate one.

In the original language, the word "knowledge" refers to something that you know through experience. Adam and Eve did have any understanding of "morality". They had the understanding that certain thing were right and others wrong. They had the understanding that they were to obey God. They had commandments beside the "do not eat" that they followed, including "be fruitful and multiple" and "have dominion over the earth". What they lacked was first had experience with good and evil. It was God intent that they understand morality through their intelligence and not through their experience. That they remain innocence as far as experiencing the effects of evil. 

Though Adam and Eve lacked knowledge of good and evil before eating from the tree, that doesn't necessarily mean they had no understanding of obedience and disobedience, or that they were totally ignorant of right and wrong. Any more than the presence of the tree of life meant they were dead until they ate from it. Even today, we lack a complete understanding of good and evil. We continually debate and question various moral issues, yet, we are not completely ignorant of good and evil either.

Conscience can be influenced by a love one just like Eve to Adam, Peer pressure like the serpent, and God who represents the good moral standard. Just like the story in the old testament, we can apply this story in a more modern perspective. People nowadays can easily be influenced by social media, peer pressure, worldly accomplishments that sometimes what you believe is right and just, all these factors would somehow turn your thoughts and beliefs of really what is right and what is wrong and that's the time where your conscience as a person becomes unstable and you tend to decide on the other side of the table.

Blogpost 4 : Types of Conscience?

Are there types of conscience? Actually there are no '"types" because the conscience is not full of species, like fish or bacteria. It is what it is, a singular thing defined as. It depends on how many ego one possesses. Conscience is a facility in our minds that distinguishes between right and wrong. A conscience forms before you are even born, but when it is in action is when you know if something is wrong or not. A conscience only works when you are doing the wrong thing when you know it is wrong. Therefore when a 1 year old does something silly and does not know it is wrong, the conscience will do nothing about it. Therefore the conscience forms and works as you grow and learn.

A conscience must consider all the facts; if it relies on something irrational, that is a mistake, not a "kind" of conscience. The word "kind" literally implies species, and there is only specie, as there is only one specie of man. If you think it through then whatever that thought process is your real foundation of morality. There are no specific types of conscience, It's really in accordance on how a person think and feel. It also depends on how you were brought up, essentially if a kid who grew up in a god fearing community and well guided family, there is a tendency this kid will grow within the standards of morality and conscience, whereas, a kid who typically grew up in a chaotic and probably crime exposed communities can easily change his/her views about morality and having a conscience in whatever they will do.

I found an article entitled "KINDS OF CONSCIENCE" by Rodelio Mallari in sermoncentral. It suggest the different types of conscience that can be found in the bible. There are seven types of conscience according to the article of Rodelio Mallari. He stated that "conscience is not always the voice of God in man" I also believe that theory can be true because sometimes conscience is formed and influenced by people we know, people we don't know, communities and norms of morality.

The first conscience written in the article is "An evil conscience". It is the opposite of a good conscience, This seems like a simple answer, but it is true. An evil conscience encourages the person too, when he does wrong. The second is "A convicted conscience" It's a conscience that gives us knowledge about god's law but we can't choose good from evil. Third is "A purged conscience" It is a conscience that rejects evil. Fourth "A pure conscience" It's the same with purged conscience, it brings you to the right way. Fifth "A weak conscience"  It is commonly found among immature christians who likes to show off, that they're attending mass every week but who know's? If they are really listening to the sermon. Sixth "A good conscience" It is the opposite of weak conscience. For the last conscience we have "A conscience void of offence" it is void of any offence before man and god.

In his article, he stated "Conscience can serve as a warning system to man. Like physical pain, which warns of damage to the body, the conscience can warn of damage to the soul!" I agree with that. A person before doing an act, conscience serves as guidance or it predicts the outcome of one's act being bad or good. It brings to a state as if you already done that. Conscience can even transport you into a timeline of what could be the result of one's action. Your conscience is less like a guide, and more like an alarm to tell you that now is an important time to think about the moral implications of a situation. Having a conscience is not just knowing what's right and wrong, sometimes, it's what struck us to feel the humane inside of us.

A friend once told me that "having or not having conscience is still all together being human" well that perspective can be debatable but at the end of the day we all agree that life is full of contradictions and us humans, how much we try to be perfect in all aspects it will all boils down to the fact that we're humans and part of being human is our imperfections. The authority over your own conscience is inside you, no one can have one for you. It is as individual as DNA.

So from what I have learned in this topic. Doing the right thing over and over will train your conscience causing it to become more accurate, and doing the wrong thing will numb it. However, it can get out of whack through abuse, or bad ethical teaching. So my understanding of conscience is that it should not be treated as an authority, but as a tool in decision making along with other tools such as reason, law, etc.

Blogpost 3 : The bad effects of conscience

Okay, so let's say that you could of saved someone's life, but you didn't. You will experience a sudden fear, a feeling like weight on your chest. It will feel uncomfortable. It might also show it's self as a few other things like the feeling that there's a hole in your torso.You will lose sleep and lose mental health. You will lack concentration. You will feel lonely. You will isolate yourself. You will want to talk to people over the web. You will never have enough time talking to the people you do want to, and the people you don't want to talk to will be there for longer. These are some of the general effects of a guilty conscience, in no particular order.

It's really a hard feeling when you know that there is something you could do but instead you just stood and do nothing. You may develop an anxiety disorder or depression. It may also lead to problems with avoidance behavior where you avoid some situations due to guilt or the possibility of guilt. It also hinders your ability to move on. Some people may say that there's a lot of good effect on our conscience but there are a lot of bad things to.

I found an article entitled "The bad effects of good conscience" in odewire. It tells about a theory by Bert Hellinger to the people without morals or standards who exterminate one another without feeling remorse but he said that they're actually acting in good conscience. Because collectively, bad people accepts who they are, they tend to overcome their fear of failure in life that's why most of the time good people tend to see themselves at the bad people's mercy. Unlike good people who doesn't accept the evil inside of them they tend to see failures as an excuse in life. That's why Hellinger urges the people to accept their shadow side.

Everyone has their own set of values. How you choose to conduct yourself is up to you. Your focus should be on being the best you that you can be. You will discover that that one mans truth is another mans lie. One mans trash is another mans treasure and so on. We all have our reasons for doing things the way we do. How we survive this changing situation is to be strong in our beliefs and values. Hold your head up knowing you are an honorable person no matter what someone else does.

Is there any solution to this conflict? The relationship between good and bad? From what I read in the article, yes there is a solution found out by Bert Hellinger. There's this third conscience that he identified called "spiritual conscience" In his words, this is what is stated in the article “The spirit is connected as well, but to everything, including its opposite. At that level, it is no longer about choosing sides for or against anyone else. The spiritual conscience stands for everything and everyone in service of peace.”

I really like the final statement in article. "Hellinger concludes that lasting peace is possible only if everyone is recognized as an equal participant—and that, he says, will happen only when a critical mass of people understands the harmful influences of conscience. Then we will be able to move beyond the inherent limits of pure goodness and embrace everything."

I agree with that statement. Understanding is the key for everything because if there is understanding, there is acceptance, if there is acceptance, we can understand one another. Because nothing in life is to be feared it is only to be understood. Remember, peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieve by understanding. Also knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.

Blogpost 2 : Conscience & Morality

I would like to share this wonderful topic among you readers. This article is focusing on Conscience and Morality, maybe some of you are wondering is this two in common? Morality is the philosophical system by which some things can be considered good and others bad while Conscience is the part of some people's minds that makes them feel guilty when they do something they think is wrong. The two are totally different things. Morality is set by a standard, but the Conscience is programmable by experiences. That is why some are not bothered by being immoral and others are.

Developing morals happens for the most part as you grow up. Through watching parents and other people and how they live their lives, you begin to get a sense of what is right and wrong. If your parents tell a lot of "little white lies", you'll not likely be one of those people who believe that absolute truth is the way to go. Conscience is another story. I don't think a conscience is something that can be learned, but that's a matter of debate. If you take the believe that conscience is a kind of mystical feeling that helps you decipher right from wrong, then it would be nearly impossible to develop it later in life. People who don't have a conscience are the ones who can do the most horrible things and not feel any guilt afterward.

I found this article on the internet it's about Moral Conscience entitled "What is Moral Conscience?" in hprweb. It has good content, organized ideas, and important information. You can learn about it's philosophy, psychology, and culture. The main idea of the article is to point out the misconceptions about Conscience and how it is connected to Morality. There are given examples there where conscience is interconnected with different abstracts. Read more information about the given web address if you want to learn more about "Conscience & Morality".

In the article, I like what Rev. Thomas V. Berg stated. "A third misconception, presents conscience as a kind of intuition which simply cannot be accounted for or explained in terms of human reasoning. Sometimes called the “moral sense,” conscience, from this viewpoint, must be developed much like developing the ability to judge a good wine, pick a winning race horse, assess a person’s character, or keep a group of school children well behaved and attentive." For all the notions that was written in there, This one is what I strongly agree. It's something that we can't explain.

Your conscience is your inborn, natural ability to detect what is right and wrong. It is literally, how we become "conscious" of the morality of our actions. We feel bad when we do something wrong. Now the problem is, it is possible to ignore and eventually kill your conscience, so that this natural sense is no longer functional so your conscience doesn't make things good or bad, but merely detects when we've chosen evil.

Some people ask if we view conscience and morality as the same thing? It's roughly equivalent to the relationship between the Mind and Fact. Facts are external to the mind's capability to grasp, and the principles of morality are independent of conscience. It's somehow like that but still not most likely the same, in other words, no amount of programming can ensure that the conscience of two people would be identical. There is this element of choices made by each individual in terms of what values one would imbibe or not. Yet, I think genes as such may have little to do with it.

People ignore conscience at times and continue to make poor choices anyway. That is likely why people have varying senses of guilt. People may feel guilty about many things because they have a good conscience but don't listen to it due to say peer pressure, society pressure, or they will get fired from their job, the list goes on. Philosophical and Psychological anythings rarely coincide. It's the internal struggle of each person to reconcile these items which people dread or ignore. It's just easier to take the low road of ignorance. 

Blogpost 1 : Oust Guilty Conscience

When does guilty conscience happen? It's when you've done something wrong and your subconscious mind is telling you to do something about it. You may not realize it but in your heart you know that you've done something wrong. Yes, it was a mistake that went against the grain of what it is to be a loving or honest person. Chalk it up to emotional immaturity at the time, being selfish, letting your anger get the best of you or thinking the person deserved it somehow. Now you are burdened with a guilty conscience and feel undeserving, regretful and even punished. 

Guilty conscience is the most hurtful experience one can have. It is the most direct attack on our ego, and also most potent because it is self generated. You have no peace of mind, inner peace, you can't concentrate in what you're doing you can't feel the real happiness you're not confident to face God. That feeling when a little voice you hear keeps reminding you of the thing that you did. What can you do to stop "guilty conscience"? Try to actually confront the people about what it is that's troubling you more often. Don't be shy, people will open up to you more than you think.

I found this article entitled "OVERCOMING A GUILTY-CONSCIENCE" in remnantresource. It was a very good topic it does not only help you dealing with guilt but also gives hope to people. I'm so interested with the topic because I often feel guilty with the things I do most. So I came to visit this article to find ways overcoming this kind of feeling.

"Most often, we deal with guilt in one of two ways. Some people are so burdened by their guilty conscience that they strive with everything in them to do something that makes them feel better about themselves. This is sort of like a guilt-transaction. The more guilty you feel, the more good you feel that you have to do to let yourself off the hook." stated by Doug Ponder in the article.

I truly believe of what Doug Ponder wrote about his article. What he's trying to state is the different ways on how people deal with guilt. That we people feel "guilty conscience" in different ways. There are some who deny and some who downplay guilt by trying to find someone else in their life who appears to be worse off than they are. That's why many people can relate to this topic, those who are over thinking about having the feeling of "guilty conscience" can help them to remove the same feeling that they're having over and over again.

Unfortunately, we come to stages in our life where the only way out is the way we least want to go to. We all make mistakes and in result, we need to take responsibility for our actions in order to move forward. There have been times in my life where I've done things I was so ashamed of, I felt at the time that i would rather die then tell my parents. Eventually, they found out anyway, I felt so ashamed and embarrassed, I'm not going to lie, it wasn't easy, but after they knew, after a few weeks, I felt so much better. My point is, the best thing you can do, is the thing that's going to be the most painful at the time, but it will only get better from there on. Maybe you could get a another family friend, or family member to tell your parents for you?

There's another article that I found entitled "Making Peace with a Guilty Conscience" and I love the last part that was stated. "When guilt consumes your thinking and overrides your love for yourself, you may be suffering beyond the scope of what is reasonable. If you have done what you can to make up for your transgression and learned from your mistake, give yourself the credit you deserve. Let go and let live." Doing the right thing is always difficult but we get stronger and better by overcoming our guilt so just take your time and let time heal your guilt.