John Shelby Spong Quotes

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good.

If all human lives depended upon their usefulness - as might be judged by certain standards - there would be a sudden and terrific mortality in the world.

We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product.

Authentic values are those by which a life can be lived, which can form a people that produces great deeds and thoughts.

The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.

Guided by nothing but pop culture values, many children no longer learn how to think about morality and virtue, or to think of them at all. They grow up with no shared moral framework, believing that the highest values are diversity, tolerance and non-judgmentalism.

Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds - and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.

I grew up in a community where it was not the exception to be a good girl. It was sort of expected. And all of my friends were good girls too, and my boyfriends were good boys. Everybody was pretty nice. And that affects how I write my characters. There aren't very many bad guys in my novels.

Though many have tried, no one has ever yet explained away the decisive fact that science, which can do so much, cannot decide what it ought to do.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.

Convinced as I am and as I am from my government that the world needs a new moral architecture over all I believe that this should be the first topic to debate in our world of today, ethics, moral.

Some things must be good in themselves, else there could be no measure whereby to lay out good and evil.

Although religion might be useful in developing a solid moral framework - and enforcing it - we can quite easily develop moral intuitions without relying on religion.

The fundamental basis of ethics must be chosen in some non-scientific way.

Saving one more young life would be far more valuable than the loss of a Sunday roast.

One cannot but regret the deliberate absence of every transcendental moral reference in governing the so-called developed society.

The ends do not justify the means. The means are the ends.

All effective actions require the passport of morality.

Without a clear moral vision, we devolve into moral relativism, and from there, into oblivion.

Ethics are pre-determined and a matter of discovery, not a evolved concept.

If we truly value humanity, life, and all that it represents in its highest form, then we need to do all that we can to promote quality of life over the quantity of life.

It is often said by religious people that without its framework, there is no sense of right or wrong. My view is that religion comes after ethics.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.