'Nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so'

The piece below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.

By Michael Commane
What would you do if you found a €10 note on the ground? I think it's fair to say that most of us would pocket it.

What would you do if you found a €50 note, €500 note?

And of course it matters too where you might find the money. I imagine most of us if we found a €500 note outside someone's house would enquire as to whether someone in that house had lost it. Or is it always a matter of 'finders keepers'?

I must have been only six or seven when I found a £1 note on the road. My father insisted I put a note in the local shop announcing that a 'sum of money' had been found. Luckily for me, no one claimed the money and I was allowed keep the £1. That was a lot of money in the mid 1950s.

The daughter of a friend of mine some weeks ago 'mislaid' her smart phone. She is fairly certain that it 'disappeared' on campus, probably in a lecture hall. So far it has not turned up.

When something like that happens it naturally makes one suspicious and it is inevitable you begin to suspect everyone in your circle. It's not at all a nice feeling.

A work colleague of mine was cycling home from work last week when another cyclist caught up with him and asked him had he dropped some money. My colleague checked and no, he had lost no money. It turned out that the cyclist had found €35 and was hoping to find the owner. Such a story naturally is uplifting and restores one's belief in people.

I cycle a lot and if I found €35 on a Dublin cycle path `I am fairly certain I would keep it? Would that be wrong?

It's clear that it is wrong to break into someone's house and remove valuables and property that do not belong to you. But what if I fiddle my taxes?

Or what about if I buy an airline ticket and somehow or other the airline fails to debit my account for the sum, should I bring it to their attention? Would you?
I think it's fair to say that an awful lot of us have something of an elastic conscience when it comes to our day-to-day attitude or behaviour regarding money.

For instance I would never think of stealing something out of a shop, on the other hand if it happened that I did not pay a bus fare, not in a million years would I think of returning the money to the company. Why not? Is there any difference in the two scenarios?

It's seldom if ever that I have heard ministers of religion pronounce in any categorical way that the slightest deviation in money matters is a matter of 'grave sin'.

So how is it when it comes to matters dealing with sexuality there is such 'certitude' and 'clarity' when it comes to the most minor deviation away from what is considered correct and proper?

Every few months there is the reliable chestnut about some priest somewhere or other who refuses to give Communion to someone because he or she is a non married parent or is divorced. And yet I have never heard of someone being refused Communion for defrauding the Revenue or for not paying their employees a 'just wage'.

What at all is the basis of morality? Has it something to do with 'doing on to others what we would like done unto ourselves?

Is there an objective morality? Can we pick and choose?

The abortion theme is now becoming part of the US election campaign. Yes, I believe that life is sacred but how come that so many of those who are vehemently opposed to abortion seldom if ever say a word about capital punishment?

What makes something right or wrong is an intriguing subject.

Shakespeare in Hamlet writes, "Nothing either good or bad, but thinking make it so". No, there's something more to it than that. What do you think?

That day I found that £1 note my father was adamant that I try find the owner, whereas my mother, I think, would have let me keep it. They were both good people with great moral values.

In Psalm 4 we read, "When I call, answer me, O God of justice.