You misuse the word moral. Morality doesn't change between one person and another, values do. Values are subjective
to a person or group or culture, etc. A moral is something that is objective and universal which does not depend on any
one person or group. Values and morals often seem to get confused, and sometimes one is called the other, but it
doesn't change what they are. Now, whether a particular person knows what is a moral and what is a value, and which
they choose to believe is which and follow, is subjective in a way, since its simply what you know or don't know or
have confused, and values will be generally whatever you have, morals may not be. If you value a moral, it is also a
value for you, but its a moral without you, you can't turn a value that is not a moral into a moral though. This is
all a point of language. Whether you believe, then, that there are ANY morals, is a different question.
As for what it is, I'll start with a quote from "Definition of Sin" section in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, since I think it does a good enough job defining it, although I would like to elaborate on it.
"1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and
neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It
has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."
Knowing whether a particular act is sinful is a bit of a problem. Knowing how that is determined helps a bit, which is
generally done by examining the Object, Intention, and Circumstances of any act (I've not really found any other
method from anywhere other than the childish "do what your conscience tells you" and "whatever you happen
to think is good or bad", both of which are fairly the same and rather simplistic relativist ideas). Knowledge
comes into play along the line, of course, in the Object, if an act itself is a sin (falls under the definition i gave)
then the act is "bad" (may be a sin based on this, but not neccessarily, as discussed below), if the intention
you have in performing the act is a bad intention, such as if you're if you're helping an old lady so that
she'll put you in her will and you can kill her, or you simply intend to harm someone by whatever action, then the
act is a sin, and if the circumstances surrounding an act make it bad, its generally a sin, and may be worse because of
circumstances (like you blew up a building with 200 people as opposed to one with no one in it), also this may be where
your knowledge comes in. If you don't KNOW, and don't have sufficiant ability to know, or are not in a
position that you should have done something in order to know, that an act is bad, then it may negate the sinful quality
of the act, it won't make a bad act good simply because you didn't know it was bad or thought it was good, but
it may negate the sinful quality, or a degree of it, depending on the degree of ignorance. You can't really be
blamed for ignorance, although you are responsible, and others are responsible to you, to remove ignorance and develope
a sufficient knowledge and ability to determine good and evil.
Now, where do you get this knowledge? Well, personally, I think much of it is common sense to MOST of us, and we are
generally taught basic principals of right and wrong, in various degrees, emphasis, and quality, by others (not always
correctly, granted). Beyond that, God does outline many instructions and reveal to those who wish to know much of what
is good and what we should do. Some of you have said that you can't be sure, and that the abudence of different
views confuses, but a person who has faith is, in fact, certain. Thats simply what faith is, certainty, whether it is
correct or not is a different issue. Also, alot of those with faith simply don't understand it and might not know
everything even that they have faith in, but they have to start from faith in order to truly gain the knowledge they
need, and if they seek understanding from faith, hopefully their faith will be purified in a way by the understanding,
which in turn would allow for greater understanding and knowledge.
Will any of us ever have full knowledge of all these things? Unlikely, but you can act and determine some degree of
whether a thing is sinful or not by what you can know. Its actually kinda like science, you might not factually know
alot, but based on other things you can develope at least a good enough understanding on which to act on and can be
certain enough of some things.
