The Case Of Christianity: The Ten Commandments

Most religions have ethical components, referring to humanistic assumptions or rules, which are often justified by reason. In the case of Christianity the “Ten Commandments” are ten laws of the Bible, which are considered to be moral acts. Society expects you to undertake these ethical rules, as from a universal perspective they are determined to be wrong. One of the “Ten Commandments” states, “You shall not lie”, teaching us that lying is immoral behaviour. This is reinforced by our conscience, which lets us know that it’s unethical to lie. However, various ethical dilemmas leave us questioning our religion when lying could save someone’s life and end their suffering. An event, which is considered as immoral behaviour, is a case regarding two Uruguay’s nurses that confessed killing 16 patients with morphine injections.
An essential theory in ethics it is named as “utilitarianism”, referring to actions, which maximize utility and benefit while reducing suffering. The nurses shared their personal opinion through the actions they committed with the help of reasoning through their ethical dilemma. The way they used reasoning as a way of knowledge attempts to justify the death of 16 people. They used reasoning and knowledge and disregarded their faith in the Hippocratic Oath to make a decision that would impact their personal lives. This decision was made by viewing the condition of the patient and considering how long would the patient survive. They reasoned that it was better that patients died without suffering and hence used their knowledge to kill them