Melanie has a new set of questions this week for her Share Your World challenge.

Questions

Is any one person’s life worth more than another’s? Why or why not?
Theoretically, no. But I believe everyone has loved ones whose lives seem more precious than others. I’m no exception to that rule, but I do believe that every human being’s life is just as important to someone than any other.

Can a good person do evil things and remain a good person? Under what circumstances?
“Evil” is a strong word! “Good” is a word connoting opinion – but whose opinion? Right now, Russia’s president Putin is doing very evil things and I do not look upon him as a “good person” and actually, I have never liked him. He always has had dictatorial aims.

But sometimes, someone goes astray, so to speak, getting involved in evil deeds but later repenting. An example would be someone who belonged to a hate group and beat up on people of color or sprayed swastikas on synagogues, but later realized that the things he had participated in were evil and wrong. There are, fortunately, quite a few people like that. But someone who does evil and doesn’t consider what they do evil and keep doing it, well, I think that person is not what I would call “good.”

Is somebody morally culpable if they take a morally wrong action at the orders of a superior? What if their life is at stake?
I don’t usually judge people for their actions under pressure. I guess it would depend on the individual situation. Ultimately, though, the superior should be the one most culpable, because he/she gave the order knowing it was morally wrong.

People had widely mixed opinions about illegal bananas, so let’s take that a step further this week:    What would be the worst thing for a government to make illegal?
basic freedoms of a democracy – the right to vote in a free and fair election, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. In other words, if the government became a dictatorship, those things would all become illegal.

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GRATITUDE SECTION  (Always optional).

Given global events right now, do you have words of comfort or an uplifting thought that you’d like to share with the world? All I have to give are prayers for the Ukrainian people, that they stand strong, and know that most of the world is on their side.