What is this so-called "Moral Compass?" What is meant by this phrase? In an ordinary social sense. the Moral Compass is the internalized (introjected) body of the acceptable standards of a society and/or culture, including religious beliefs defining what is considered to be good or bad behavior by a majority of people. We are not born with a sense of morality. There is no evidence that God imprinted a set of moral rules in any human being of whatever ethnicity, culture, or religion, contrary to belief that this Being did (if such a Being there be, in any case). {I am not a full-blown atheist, more of an agnostic; but as I grow older I come extremely close to the point that the Hebraic-Christian cum Muslim god (or gods) simply do not make sense at all - even that these gods are more cruel and are certainly not worthy of respect, much less adoration}. I don't know if you are familiar with FERAL CHILDREN. "Feral" means savage, untamed, or wild. It means children who have been adopted by some mammal, such as a wolf, ape, bear, and so on. Such children have usually been abandoned by their human caretakers for one reason or another, or an unusual circumstance has fated such children to be lost to the wilds. I have researched, and written at some lenght about these kids. There are a number of classical cases (google "Feral Children" on the net. WIKI, and associated sources, will give you a lot to read on the subject). But to shorten the explanation a bit, I will discuss these type of kids only in relationship to morality. If such children were not mentally retarded, or challenged in an intellectual way, they had to be fairly young for a nursing wolf, bear, ape, etc., to adopt them; but nursing females have a built-in biological mechanism to want "to mother" young things, even if these young things are not of their own species. I'm sure most of you have encountered events reported in the press where a femal dog will permit a kitten to share her milk with her pups. (Mothers are so weird!). Well, to get to my point, such children, even if they had a sufficient intelligence, would be unable to pick up any moral training except for the absorbing the natural, and normal, behavior patterns of their adoptive mother and her babies. If they remained long enough with their beastly kin, they would not have a chance to walk upright, never occassion any language skills except the sounds made by the animal relatives, and indulge in play with the members of their family - even indulging in sexual behavior with them . And, that's all they would know for, thereafter, they would be difficult to tame and re-train. Read the accounts I referred you to. These children would have no sense of human morals. The imprint is simply not there for that. Etched in their minds and bodies would be the ways of their animal kin. The Moral Compass, then, is the "instrument" that purportedly gives you the means to differentiate between "good and evil," according to the blueprint impressed upon you from the time you were a babe, and fortified as you hop along the road of life. The morals of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindis, and so many other religious/moral views may coincide here and there between these, and other, religions, cultures, etc, but there are substantial differences as well. I leave that to you, my readers, to discern for yourselves. Think of the difference in morallity between vampires and wolf-folks, ghouls and zombies...it's Hell out there!!! Paladin
