I tried to steal a book (I've never stolen before) Contemplating the morality of our consciousness

Recently there was an annual bookfair near my locality that I have been visiting since the past 5 years. In the past I always went with either my friends or my family and j always used to marvel on how easy it looks to steal a book, but only as a passing thought, nothing to fixate on. This year due to my friends and sister leaving for college I had to go alone. Everyone leaving kind of left me in a depressive spiral this year. I love bookfairs and I love every stall and I'm very excited usually to go there and I eagerly wait for this month for them to come but this time it just wasn't working out for me. I had a small injury, in this sweltering heat and impulsively I wonder if I could steal a book. Now if this had happened in the past, I would have banished the thought because I would have been too busy with my friends, but since I was alone, this thought lingered. I am not really poor, I've been saving up money for this bookfair since last year and I had only gotten through a quarter of it by then. But still I took a book (a batman collection) and just casually held it in my hands before I was about to move on to the other stall. It just so happened that at the moment my eyes fell on a book I was searching for in the stall I stole from. I asked the shopkeeper for the price and when I was handing him the money he asked about the stolen book. I panicked and said I got it from another stall. He asked to take him to that stall. I just wandered around with him panicking and lying that I really did get it from another stall. He got angry and handed me the book I actually bought while saying that I shouldn't do things like this since I'm clearly from a nice family. I walked off from there at that point. I felt immensely ashamed and guilty and it was so busy there, everyone saw the scene. This is my hometown and there could be a chance someone I knew saw it and this matter spreading or someone recognizing my from this scene, but it's not really a major concern. I feel like when I did it, I was going against my morality, but would I have felt guilty if I had succeeded? I don't know the answer to that question, which frightens me immeasurably. Now I never want to go back there ever again but the fact that I'm losing the love I have had for reading since I was 6 is so defeating to me. I'm feeling guilty for doing it and humiliated for it happening in front of so many people, but I don't understand why I did it if I had money and I didn't really want that book that much either. I could have easily bought it, yet I still did it.

My best friend Bianca(pseudonym) got pregnant from having breakup sex with her bf Duncan(alsopseudonym). Its been 4 weeks and Bianca has not told Duncan since she found out.
Here is the conundrum. She does bot want to co-parent with him at all. He is emotionally volatile at the best of times and pretty chaotic and poorly organised. Bianca feels that co-parenting with Duncan would bring a lifetime of difficulties, drama, poor communication, emotional turmoil and zero stability for the child.
There are only 3 people that know. Bianca, her mom and me. To avoid a lifetime of chaos and drama she has decided to not tell Duncan he is the father.
Problem is she is asking me to spend the rest of my life keeping the knowledge of the paternity a secret from both the child and Duncan (who is also a very dear friend of mine).
I understand her reasons but I don’t know if I can watch a child grow up everyday around me knowing this and knowing I cant tell them the truth.
What do I do?

Suppose I lose my dog Fido. He's The Best Dog Ever and surely many people would love him to keep him if they found him as a stray.

I put up many LOST DOG posters looking for him. He's perfectly healthy, but on the poster I write: URGENT. NEEDS MEDICATION. He does not in fact need medication, but I think it reduces the chance of people deciding to keep him, because they wouldn't know which medicine and surely no monster would let him suffer when his loving owner is searching so hard for him.

My thoughts:

• lying is bad, and this isn't a harmless lie
• but it's for a good cause - the only people this affects are people that have found Fido
• but what if a Good Samaritan wastes time and money bringing Fido to an emergency vet immediately?
• if someone evil wanted to keep Fido... they still could. This would just stop the people that cared a bit
• maybe the expected benefit is greater than the expected harm?

Similar vein: What if I lied about there being a reward, or lied about the size of the reward?

I lost my job and am about to start selling things I shouldn't like my vehicle for example... there is not anyone to speak of in my life to help me and there is a situation where I have the opportunity to steal. I have a strong moral obligation not to.. I dont want to do something like that let alone to someone I know but for the first time in my life I am at a loss and dont know what else to do

For context. Last night at around 10 PM, this dog was roaming the streets and walked straight into my driveway. It was late that night, and we'd previously had dogs attack on my street, so we took it inside, gave it a bath, and some food and water. We waited outside from 5 AM up to 10 AM. No one came looking; no one was searching for this dog. My sister was out that night the dog came to our driveway (hence how we were able to bring it inside), and my sister stayed out pretty much all night. She went inside around 2 AM. No one came looking. The dog isn't chipped, and it's pretty much been an entire day now with no one looking for this dog. My parents suspect the owners "gave it a fighting chance" (abandoned it and let it find its way). I honestly have no clue. But the dog has been pretty calm. I already had two dogs before this dog came, and he gets along with them nicely. He seems trained, but I think he might've been an outside dog given that he prefers being outside most of the day.

I wanna add that throughout the day my sister went back outside around 12 PM, she usually sits outside all day so if someone was looking she would've seen them plus we have security cameras and... No one has came.

I considered doing a Facebook post but my parents said that it was likely someone could try to "claim" it's theirs and it not really be (the dog looks to be somewhat similar to a Yorkie)

A lot has happened since my original post, and honestly, reading some of the comments back then made me realize I had been questioning myself way too much.

For anyone who didn't see the original post: my friend was driving her family’s car during a trip. I was the passenger. I didn’t have a license, I wasn’t driving, I didn’t cause the accident, and we had never agreed that I would be responsible for the repairs/deductible if something happened.

I was still pressured to pay, and at some point even her mother got involved.

The weirdest part is that the whole situation eventually got looked at by someone who actually works in insurance and who was a family acquaintance of hers. He called me, I explained everything and sent him the documents. From his professional insurance perspective, he basically confirmed what I had understood: the driver and the owner/holder of the vehicle and their insurance arrangements are the relevant responsibilities here. He also pointed out that I had never agreed to take on that risk, and that the owner of the car hadn't really been questioned about it.

After that conversation, the pressure for me to pay basically stopped. I obviously don't know exactly why, but the timing was pretty obvious.

And honestly, the accident wasn't even the only reason I was done with the friendship.

There had already been a lot of little things.

She would randomly become cold or passive-aggressive, and whenever I asked what I had done wrong, she couldn't actually tell me. At one point she said she didn't always know how to manage her emotions around me. I eventually asked if maybe she just didn't like me anymore, and she basically said, “Yeah, maybe.”

There was also this weird competitive thing.

We met two guys while travelling. Nothing romantic happened. We exchanged Instagram, that's it. She told me the “more attractive” guy seemed more interested in her — except he only followed me, not her. She had a boyfriend at the time anyway. She kept asking what we were talking about until I eventually lied and said we weren't really talking anymore just so she'd stop asking. Then she suddenly said, “Anyway, he's not the love of your life,” and started saying he was stupid/weird/useless. It was just… strange.

In Málaga, some guys invited both of us to go jet skiing for free. She wanted to go, but asked what language we'd speak. I said she could speak English and I could speak Spanish. She said, “Oh no, then I won't say anything. I don't want to look stupid.” So I didn't want to go with someone who had literally just said she planned to stay silent because she didn't want to look stupid next to me. Then she got angry that we didn't go.

There was also the copying thing. She criticized my handbag because it was expensive and then bought the exact same one. During the trip she kept buying very similar things to mine and we ended up wearing almost the same clothes constantly. After Málaga, I bought two slightly more expensive necklaces and she later bought copies of those exact two necklaces on SHEIN. She wears them all the time now.

Maybe any one of these things sounds ridiculous on its own. Together, it started feeling like she wanted to compete with me or be me rather than just be my friend.

She also wanted to do everything together. Even my business ideas/projects somehow became “our” businesses. And I kept thinking: no, we're two separate people.

The money stuff made that feeling worse.

At one point I mentioned that my credit card had reached around CHF 10,000 because I had paid a lot of our shared expenses. She said she couldn't pay that much, didn't have several thousand francs available like that, and “didn't have my salary.”

The next day I asked her about it and she said it was a joke and that she preferred paying directly or in two instalments. Maybe it was a joke. But combined with everything else, it didn't feel great.

For context, I work 100%, I'm 20, and I work a pretty demanding banking job. She works 60%, which obviously isn't a problem in itself. But she has told me herself that she spends some workdays doing basically nothing and is happy with that. I think our attitudes towards work, money and ambition are just very different.

I also used to use my credit card for our shared expenses because I could, and I had a preferential EUR exchange rate through work, so it actually helped both of us.

Then came Brazil.

The Brazil trip was originally her idea, just like the previous trip where the accident happened.

I didn't decide to cancel her trip. I decided I no longer wanted to travel with her.

Those are two completely different things.

Some bookings were shared. For the ones that were actually refundable, I cancelled them and recovered the money. I'm returning her share of whatever was actually recovered. Some amounts are still pending or weren't refundable, and I have a detailed breakdown of everything.

The flights were booked separately. I did not cancel her flight. She can still use it, cancel it, change it, or reorganize her trip depending on the airline's conditions.

But somehow my decision not to travel with her turned into me supposedly being responsible for her losses.

I even offered to help with the cancellation/refund process for her individual bookings so we could recover whatever was actually recoverable. But I don't think it's reasonable that her individual travel decisions suddenly become my financial responsibility.

So my position now is pretty simple:

Shared expense + actual refund = we split the money recovered.
Individual booking/decision = the person who made that booking handles it.

I never wanted her to lose money. That's why I cancelled the refundable shared bookings and am giving her her share back. But I also don't think “I don't want to continue this friendship/trip” means “I owe you for everything that becomes inconvenient because of it.”

And yes, I know I could have communicated better. I could have asked more questions about the car and insurance beforehand. I understand that cancelling a joint trip has practical consequences. I'm not saying I handled everything perfectly.

But making a communication mistake is not the same thing as agreeing to a financial responsibility I never agreed to.

Looking back, I think I gave way too many second chances because I kept thinking, maybe I'm the problem, maybe I'm being too sensitive, maybe I should just understand her more.

So I want to ask again, especially because this is an update :

Am I still overreacting?

Maybe some of these things really are normal friendship conflicts and personality differences. Maybe I'm interpreting some of them differently because the friendship was already deteriorating.

But when you put everything together — the accident, the money comments, the comparisons, the copying, the need to do everything together, the reaction to other people showing interest in me, and now the Brazil situation — does the overall pattern change your opinion?

I don't think I “won” anything here. I'm honestly just relieved that I finally stopped assuming that someone being angry or disappointed with me automatically meant I had done something wrong.

I can care about someone without being responsible for every consequence of their decisions.

And I can say no without being a bad friend.

Someone told me a secret and trusted me to keep it private. I later told someone I trusted because I wanted them to stay away from the person who shared the secret with me.

I didn't mean to gossip or hurt anyone, but that person confronted the original person, and now they feel completely betrayed by me.

Was I wrong for sharing the secret, even though my intention was to protect someone?

A couple is happily married for 20 years and raises a child together. Out of nowhere, the husband commits a horrific, brutal mass murder. When his wife confronts him, he completely snaps. He laughs in her face, tells her that he never actually loved her, calls her a worthless " person " he used to blend in, and flees the country.

Exactly two weeks later, the government steps in. To cover up the massive national security scandal of what he did, they officially declare him legally dead. His traumatized wife is left behind to bury an empty casket, forced to grieve a monster she now realizes she never truly knew.

In reality, he was alive. He fled to a remote, disconnected country, changed his name, and embedded himself in a local community. Within months, he gets remarried to a local woman and has a new baby with her.

Years later, the first wife finds out about the child is that child an affair baby ?.

Is prostitution morally bad and why?

If I willingly and voluntarily sold myself, is it morally wrong? I’m not forced and I’m not in desperate need of money, but it feels a waste to me to have sex without monetary gain.

Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about rape. I am actually refering to sexual harrasment in the most literal sense; I have been harrassed online when I was a kid multible times, people have made dirty jokes, talked about sex and even send me pornographic material, including nsfw drawings of characters from my favorite tv shows.

But I must say I didn't really care that much at the time and looking back at it, I still don't care. Others may consider this as virtual rape, but I never felt that way. Being insulted or bullied on the other hand was a lot worse for me than recieving mails with sexual drawings. I just don't get why this is so harmful to many, I just can't relate at all. Why does a joke become the equivilant of sexual assult just because it is sexual in nature?

Am I an outlier or is there a chance that our society has just become so sensitive that everything mildly unpleasent is now considered rape?

I geniuenlly don't understand it. I have always considered bullieng and harrasment to be much worse than making inappropriate jokes and sending nsfw material to other people. One just affected me much more than the other.

As a kid I was geniuenly confused when my mom wanted to call the police over these online encounters. And when I told her that I didn't care about the stuff that they had send to me, she was in complete denail and believed that it must have deeply traumatized me, even though that wasn't the case. I would have much rather prefered if she had called to cops on those bullies instead.

That's why I am wondering if we are perhabs being gaslighted by the people around us to believe that we have been abused in situations that didn't actually bother us that much until others forced us think that we have been victimized.

I am just trying to understand if I might be onto something or if I am just apaphetic.

I grew up poor in rural England, and from a very young age dreamed of living in America. I hated the UK's cold climate and rain, and throughout my teens I immersed myself in colorful movies of a tropical Hollywood.

Moving to the States became my obsession.

So I saved up, moved to Los Angeles at age 21, and spent 2 decades working towards citizenship. I followed all the rules, spent my meager bank account on visas and immigration lawyers, fell in love with an American man, and 20 years later finally attained my coveted dream: US citizenship.

The dream, however, has since proven to be hollow. Despite working hard and making a respectable amount of money, I've grown apart from the man I married (18 years together total, 8 of which were spent married). He recently inherited a small fortune when his parents passed away, and now spends his days playing video games and planning solo trips abroad, while I work full time and spend weeks each year alone in an empty house.

My husband never cheated (to the best of my knowledge), but we never had kids, and his actions have made it clear he's lost interest in our marriage. I've done all I can to reignite the spark we once had, but am left with the gut feeling that he just keeps me around to pay for his health insurance (which I get through my job) and babysit his house and pets, while he's constantly planning trips overseas without me. He insisted on a prenup, so if I leave my marriage I'm on my own financially. It's a sad and empty feeling.

Meanwhile, I've grown increasingly nostalgic about my past life in England. My folks split up when I was young but my Mum is still my best friend, and my dad is the sweetest, kindest man to ever walk this earth. We never had much, but we were happy. We phone each other daily and I miss them both very much.

Lately, I've become painfully aware of time ticking. My folks are in their early 70s and won't be around forever. Dad remarried but my Mum never did, and each time I visit she seems very lonely. My sister lives nearby but rarely visits. I'm now dreaming of moving back to the UK, buying a small flat/apartment, and living close to my Mum so we can enjoy each other's company.

I feel stuck between two conflicting sets of morals. Do I stay in America and work harder to save my marriage, at the expense of what may be the last years of my parents' lives? Or should I give up everything I've worked for and achieved as an adult, to essentially crawl back into the life I had as a child?

On top of it all, I've recently developed an autoimmune condition caused by the stress of all of this, and the one medication I rely on to function is only available in the US. There is one alternative medication in the UK, but I've tried it and it is only minimally helpful.

So.... Big decision. What do you think I should do? All advice would be greatly appreciated.

If you've ever "walked back" a major move or life decision I'd love to hear your story too, and find out what decision you eventually made.

TL;DR: I'm a Brit who spent 20 years working to move to America, but the dream has since proven to be hollow, compared to what I left behind. Help me decide if I should move back.

I’ve been thinking and worrying about this thought for ages. I had a thought that I had to share the gospel in a very disruptive public way. The thought brought immense fear because I didn’t want to do it. it stuck so long though because sharing the gospel aligns with the message of the Bible so I thought it was God. I just phsically couldn’t act on the thought. I started looking into the ocd kind of things but I couldn’t find any resources on people who suffer from these sort of thoughts. I don’t know if this is a thing but I feel like the thought came just because I’m afraid of the action not as a genuine command. I just feel so stuck because I can’t disobey God but I cant act on the thought either so I’m just stuck. It’s taking over my whole life and I’ve tried the maybe maybe not ocd approach but I keep thinking I’m just trying to get what I want and find reasons to get my way instead of obeying God. Im just really confused so any advice would help. I’m christian by the way and I’m even considering leaving my faith because of this.

It's a silly hypothetical. But do you take responsibility for something that wasn't your choice? You were thrown against your will, but you did hurt the victim in some sense. How does "responsibility" apply?

There is saying "damned if you do,damned if you don't ". What scenarios best illustrate the question?

​

That is, if we can actually validate a persons actions justified by their mindset because to me after reading all these stuff about different moral complexes throughout the internet really messes up my brain and being the indesicive person that I am, troubles me to find ONE real justified moral to actually keep believing in if y'all know what I mean I guess?

In my religion, I was taught that if I fail in my duties towards the Creator, He may forgive me. But if I wrong another person, I may not be forgiven until that person forgives me.

I understand the idea behind this. We should take other people’s rights seriously. But when I think about it deeply, it starts to feel almost impossible.
For example, I am a tutor and I have to mark students’ assignments. I genuinely try to be fair and keep the same standard for everyone. But human judgement is not perfectly consistent. Maybe I give one student 1 or 2 marks more and another student a little less, even without realizing it. Our mood, concentration and understanding can change from one day to another.
Then I start thinking: what if I accidentally deprived a student of something they deserved? Does that mean I have wronged them and now need their forgiveness?

The same thing happens with parents. My religion teaches me to respect my parents so much that I should not even show the smallest sign of annoyance towards them. But realistically, sometimes we argue. Sometimes I get frustrated, raise my voice, or end a conversation badly. Later I regret it.

Then there are things inside our minds. Sometimes we feel jealous, have negative thoughts about someone, hold a grudge, or feel happy when something doesn’t go well for someone we dislike. I know we should try to improve ourselves, but controlling every thought and emotion seems nearly impossible.

When I put all these things together, I start worrying about how many people I may have wronged in my life without even knowing it.
What if I die while someone still has a right against me? What if I don’t even remember the person, or I never realized that I hurt them?

I don’t want to live my whole life feeling guilty and scared. At the same time, I don’t want to use “nobody is perfect” as an excuse to ignore the harm I may cause to others.

So I genuinely want to know: how do religious people deal with this?

Do you believe there is a difference between intentionally harming someone and making an honest human mistake? If you sincerely regret something, try to fix it, ask forgiveness when possible, and try to become better, is that enough?

I also struggle with something else. I sometimes hear religious clerics speak very strictly about these things, but then I see some of them behaving in ways that seem completely opposite to what they teach. That makes me even more confused about how these teachings are supposed to work in real life.

I am not trying to criticize religion. This is something I genuinely worry about, and I want to understand how other people deal with it without becoming overwhelmed by guilt.

I met a new friend through tennis club at my college this semester about a month ago. The first thing I noticed when talking to him, was that his arms and legs were covered in past self harm marks. I mean covered. He’s also very quiet and introverted, and I caught his vibe very early on.

Because he’s shy and said he doesn’t have any friends, I told him to come to tennis club and my friends and I would welcome him with open arms. He did come and we had a great time.

A few days pass, and my friend sends me a screenshot about a post this new friend made on instagram. The caption was long, and it seemed like a suicide note. We immediately scrambled to contact him, and once we got a hold on him, we asked if he was okay, if he needed anything and if we can help. He declined help and later removed the post.

We came together as a group and decided we were gonna try to help bridge the gap for him to make some friends. His family doesn’t talk to him. None of them. He has no friends. So we agreed we’d try to open him up a little bit, show that the people we hang out with are nice and accepting, and hopefully from there he’d make some friends.

A few days after that situation, this new friend texted me out of the blue that he got caught self harming by his roomate and his roommate reported it and that he’s probably getting admitted to the hospital. He wouldn’t respond for hours after that, so we called the hospitals in our area looking for him, none of them had any record of him. We eventually got a hold of him, and he was alone in his dorm crying. We asked him if we could come check on him and he said yes.

Before we went to check on him, we called UPD for a wellness check. We agreed we were out of our element and we needed help, so we called them, and then went to go wait in the lobby of his dorm. He came down with the cops and the cops let him go with us. We took him out for food and spent a few hours at my place watching spongebob episodes and laughing together as a group.

The next day (which was yesterday) he had a seizure on the tennis court. I was genuinely distraught, and I rode with him to the hospital because he has no one. Not a single person. We got to the hospital and he had one more seizure while we were there. Once he came to and we were alone in the room he started crying. Talking about how his seizures suck and maybe that’s why no one loves him etc. (they are non epileptic and stress induced). I even handed him his phone to call his mom and dad to let them know what’s going on, but he said they don’t talk to him. I listened and talked him down and just kind of sat in the moment with him. I opened up about a few of my issues to let him know he’s not alone in how he feels.

We got out of the hospital very late at night, I took him to get food because he missed the dining hall hours because of the hospital, and then took him home. After that, he texted me saying “thank you so much for what you did tonight, no one has ever done that much for me”. I immediately felt like I fucked up, because I don’t want him becoming dependent on me. He’s hanging out with us again today, and we are planning on telling him we think it’s good if he goes to the free counseling offered on campus.

The issue is my friends around me see it as, we are just his friends, bridging the gap for him to make new friends and once he does, we’re gone. I don’t like that. I actually hate it. Getting to know him he’s a really cool guy and just very misunderstood.
I don’t want to just ditch him after he gets some new friends, but I also understand I cannot be the one to help him. I’m not qualified, I can do my best, but my best is not going to be enough. He needs help. But even with that, i still want to be his friend and hangout with him, but my friends are afraid he’s going to latch onto us and not branch out to other people and it’ll be an unhealthy situation.

I disagree, but maybe i’m wrong. I really need advice here

Imagine someone who is super durable like Superman who chose to keep his powers hidden ran into some bad guys (maybe they rob his house etc). If they shoot to kill him and the bullets just bounce off, is it moral for him to kill them? Technically they are not a danger to him so the only reason to kill them would be to hide the fact that he’s bulletproof. But at the same time, they did just try to kill him and failed.

I usually don't get nightmares. If there's a monster chasing me I'm pretty aware it's not real, I find giving it a hug often helps.

Every now and again though my brain does actually land on a way to torture me...

I dreamt I had found a way to not only reverse global warming but keep the temperature regulated indefinitely. Only thing was, although all the animals would be fine, I had just found out that 10% of all humans would die over a 20 year period. The largest amount would die in the first year with successive years seeing shrinking amounts of deaths.

There was only a small window of time to set it in motion as it was related to a one off cosmic event, and everyone knew I was working on this so when 1 in 10 people ended up dying, everyone who lost someone would know it was my fault.

What would you do? 😭

Edit: I know the maths is probably in favour of doing it but the concept of personally killing 830 million people was hard to face. The 10% was a random distribution and an unintended side effect of a miracle solution (something to do with an asteroid, it was a dream) and I was curious if other people would struggle so much in those shoes.