I can't remember if I've written this here or not, but one day my Visiting Teacher was over, and she was telling me about how her husband did not grow up "in" the Church, and how he actually didn't even grow up with basic ideas such as the Golden Rule. You'd never know that, though, as he is such a great man!
I began thinking about how so much of general ethical behavior is passed down through religious traditions. Now, however, many people aren't even practicing any religion or even believing in God. I'm wondering how much of our ethical training is being lost and leading to the many unethical/dishonest/greedy/prideful things so many people are doing in corporate America. Rather than doing things for the good of the people, people do things for their own good, not caring about who gets hurt on the way.
Yesterday I was able to teach from the President Hinckley manual from the introductory materials as well as chapter 1. In the book, it mentions how as a young man in college during the Depression, his faith was tried a bit and he had questions about the Church. However, he noted that he had bishops, teachers, parents, belief in God, etc. to fall back on. I can't remember if it says it in the manual, but someone mentioned how when we question, we also have the testimonies of those around us to fall back on. I thought what a strength President Hinckley had to have so many around him with faith in God! I wondered, do our youth today have that assurance? I don't know. There are so many people not believing the Church and not even believing in God anymore (and mocking it, even). How sad that these are the conditions we see today and the safety net of faith in God and even mere ethical behavior is being broken.
A good thing that we discussed, though, was that when we have questions (and we talked about disappointments, too, in which this also applies), we can go straight to God - the best place for the best answers. I wonder if people (in the biggest sense of the word) will ever again see the benefit of religion in making us ethically rooted.
