Good morning class. Good morning Mr. Forest-Jones. Today, we’re going to talk about the subject of Ethics. You may not have heard this word before, but it’s a lot more important than you think. Plus, there is a lot of talk of an Ethics class that the government is testing out in a couple of schools around the state. So, when you hear your parents talking about “that Ethics class” around the dinner table, you’ll be able to say, “Hey! I know about that. We talked about Ethics in SRE today.”
So here we go: Imagine your life as a house. You live in the house. You sleep, eat, play, chat, learn, work, etc, in the house. Living in the house is comfortable, safe, warm. You have everything you need in the house. Life is good.
The structure of the house represents the rules, what you can do and what you shouldn’t do. As long as you live within the house —that is, obey the rules of the house— then life is good, easy, comfortable. The rules of the house guide your behaviour and your choices. The house has served you well. Once you step outside of the house, the rules don’t apply. You live aimlessly and dangerously because nothing is protecting you. GET BACK INTO THE HOUSE!
Every house is built on a foundation. The foundation gives the structure of the house strength and form. Foundations can be made of different materials and not all materials are created equally, are not all as good as each other. A house built on a weak, or on no foundation, cannot stand for long. The foundation provides the basis, the reason, the “Why?”, for the rules that are the house.
In this illustration, the house is Morality, the rules that guide our behaviour. Make no mistake, we all make choices in and for our life based on some set of rules that we follow. We may not be able to articulate those rules, just as we may not be able to describe all the details of the house that we live in, but we still live by some rules, just as we live within some sort of shelter.
The foundation of the house is Ethics, the basis of the rules that we follow in making choices about how we are going to behave. This foundation explains why we have chosen to follow these particular rules, in comparison to other possible rules.
As a child, those rules are given to us by our parents and our teachers; the reason for following those rules is, “Because I said so!” 
But as we move into our teen years, we start to separate from our parents and make decisions for ourselves about the rules that we will follow and why we’ve chosen those rules. The material of the foundation that our parents and our teachers provided becomes the starting-point and a pattern for the foundation that we will build for our own house.
While the different rules that people follow for themselves may often seem similar to those of another person —for example, “Do unto others as you would have them do to you!”— the reason why different people follow the same rules may actually be quite different from one another. At its most basic, Ethics can be based on a recognition that God exists or that God does not exist. If God exists, then our rules tend to be based on love and obedience to God. If God does not exist, then our rules tend to be based on an agreement between individuals (e.g. “I’ll do this for you, if you do this for me” or “I’m stronger than you, so you will do what I say”).
For people who call themselves “Christians”, those who follow the example and teaching of Jesus Christ, our Ethics and Morality can be summarised very simply:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40, TNIV)
Therefore, Christians behave the way that Jesus taught us —we only behave in ways that show our love for God and show love for everyone around us— because we believe that God exists and that he should be loved, trusted and obeyed. That is our morality and our ethics, and this house is comfortable and safe.
Everyone should be taught to think about their rules and the reasons for the rules they have chosen. However, it is a mistake to think that Ethics taught without recognition of God’s existence is the same as Ethics taught recognising that God exists. They are two different types of Ethics. And not all Ethics are created equal.
